Chapter 13 moreover - in which I die and bake apple strudel

“Away with the fairies,” I remember thinking to myself as I flip out of 3D, and instantaneously I feel g-nome reconnecting what can only be described as a spiral forest of stairways moving in every direction from the central hub of me out towards infinity – like the distant edge of a giant bubble, twisting and weaving, like the inside of a great seashell, like a field of wheat swaying in the breeze... words fail me.

“Oh my, oh my, oh my...!!!” followed by some more “Oh my, oh my, oh my,” and continuing quite happily, without any sense of repetition “Oh my, oh my, oh my,” for each “oh my” refers to something different – something unique that I’m only now able to feel and experience for the first time – or the first time from the perspective of my erstwhile 3D self. “Oh my...” it feels so good just being here and “oh my-ing” – surfing through the endless Faery realms of colour, light, sound, of earth and tree, of flower, of cloud...  yet an electric blue beetle awaits me – so once I’ve had a good spin through the allness of is, and recharged myself with Faery flight of fancy, I know it’s time to take myself back to the portal gates where Roger awaits and I have something important to do, if only I could remember what.

“Away with the fairies...” I hear my voice, obviously completely out of it.

“Yes, that’s all very well Josh, but it’s rather hard work holding on to you like this, so if you don’t mind I’d like you to flip the switch NOW.”

Roger was obviously finding it tougher than he’d expected – or maybe I was just taking longer than expected to come round.

“Flip the switch?” I’m thinking to myself. What on earth is he referring to. I’m still enjoying these out of body sensations, celestial visions, and what not... the last thing I want to do is crash down to the nuts and bolts mundane reality of relay circuitry, but that, apparently, is what I’m meant to do.

“Too right you are,” says Roger panting. “Master Wu assured me you’d be no trouble – that you’d wake up spontaneously as he’s taught you to.”

“Master Wu,” I’m thinking to myself... “the one who never taught me anything – how bizarre!” but no sooner have I thought this than I have the shock of my life... How can I describe it? Imagine living your whole life believing you’re a hamster, experiencing what a hamster experiences, eating what a hamster eats and drinking what a hamster drinks – even dreaming what a hamster dreams, and all of a sudden you look in the mirror, you see your reflection and to your surprise you find yourself gazing at a cat. No sooner do you see your cat reflection than you recall what a moment before was blank, terra incognito, the cat mind you never knew you had – and the hamster part of your mind starts issuing loud, vehement “but... but... it doesn’t make sense... I don’t understand.”

Oh dear, that doesn’t nail it either. I’m struggling as you can see. Rewind.

“Master Wu,” I’m thinking to myself... “the one who never taught me anything – how bizarre!” but at this precise moment I’m able to cross over to the other awareness, the part of me that is sitting by the lotus lake with Master Wu,  and the two sides are now able to shift into synergy with each other. “But... but... it doesn’t make sense... I don’t understand,” raises his hand, but teacher says “quiet Josh – you’re doing fine – everything’s perfectly comprehensible,” and to your inordinate surprise – teacher is right for once and – contradictions be damned, paradox effortlessly decoded and disambiguated, all is clear as crystal dew.

“Look Josh, I understand what you’re going through, I appreciate it’s not your average Wednesday afternoon in the office set up, but please understand that I only have about 7 seconds left before I have to let your signal crash, so either flip the switch or face the consequences.

Bizarre. I don’t panic – not in the least. It’s as if I’m absolutely confident, even though I don’t appear to have a clue. One part of me is thinking “what on earth’s Roger going on about?” while another is patiently explaining that the g-nome portal uplink requires a manual override of system protocols, which is why I have to go into my genetic control panel which actually appears as a physical room, with flashing displays, a bit of engine oil and a smell – you’d either love it or hate it... and there I am – or rather there’s the part of me that deals with this kind of thing – long ears, whiskers, big soft round eyes, calm, competent – what you might call my elfine system administrator.

“Funny – who am I, where am I?” I start to muse – wondering whether I’m the elf-like system administrator, the normal 3D me, the me that’s with Master Wu or the one that’s standing opposite Roger, watching as he grimaces in pain, before finally giving up and releasing the wires he’s been holding together. Oops. That’s er... bad isn’t it?

“Yes, very bad, says the elfine system administrator – whose name is Llyss – but I rather suspected you’d be slow on the uptake so I’ve routed in a time loop that can switch us back 15 seconds. If you’re quite ready, we can now do what we appear to have failed to do.”

“Oh good job Llyss,” I’m about to say, but something snaps me into higher awareness, whence I cut out all superfluous conversation and act with complete composure. At this precise moment all the levels, all the aspects of me, of my self which is necessarily represented wherever conscious-awareness manifests – all come into synchronicity and act with one accord. Astonishing. Perfect timing. Perfect unity. We act as one and neither space nor time nor the laws of physics, chemistry or biology can stand in our way.

Blip. Fibble. Mugjug. Pondavar-selmek. Jofzehan.

No idea what they mean – but they make absolute perfect sense in the HERE and NOW of all that is I AM.

...And some mind bending music that would normally reduce me to a state of imbecilic dysfunctionality, but makes me hyper co-ordinated and activates my hum-along glands.

I’m aware of seeing from multiple perspectives – and yet there’s the all seeing eye of the observer that simply witnesses how story unfolds in various threads. In the first thread Roger watches me crumple to the ground, inanimate, then a few seconds later my body disintegrates into light – if the words “disintegrate” can be used in this context.

Moving swiftly on – that thread doesn’t seem to offer me the satisfaction of story – for true Story has to lead somewhere – into ever greater happiness.

Thread 2 – sensing that I’m unable to respond in time and flip the switch, I revert back to dream mode, and from dream mode back to Master Wu’s meditation class, where I’m able to process all this and learn from my mistakes, so when we try again next time I’ll be better prepared.

This version is kind of neutral – it neither offends nor pleases me. I’m ready to accept it if nothing else is forthcoming... Just then, however, a straggler arrives huffing and puffing, with a glint in his eye that seems to be saying “boy have I got something for you.”

Thread 3 – at the precise moment that Roger looses the wires and I fall into the abyss of neither here nor thereness, the earth passes through some kind of quantum anomaly which momentarily reverses time. It’s like I’m falling, but the earth is falling faster, so in fact I’m rising, relatively speaking. As this happens my conscious-awareness coalesces into what can only be described in Goblin terminology as the 27^th moment – absolute clarity – and not only do I flip the switch but I also manage to prepare Roger an apple strudel (his favourite dish), write a highly regarded treatise on inter-dimensional coin flipping and, somewhat embarrassingly, cut my toe nails, all at the same – er – moments, if you know what I mean.

Needless to say, the effect is more than pleasing. Roger hasn’t ever experienced apple strudel materialising from what was 3.4 seconds previously a dematerialised body, only to see the apple strudel followed by a hand, arm, me, and the mutant waveforms of the aforementioned music I’d been listening to while getting all this done.

“My God Josh, what on Earth’s that noise – a diesel engine regurgitating yesterday’s lunch by any chance?”

“You like it?” I beam. “I can teach you guys a thing or two about sound and frequency you know.”

“Er...” Roger’s torn between the desire to eat the exquisitely baked apple strudel, with a dusting of cinnamon sprinkled on top, and protect his ears from audio anaphylactic shock – but no need – the sound now disappears back into hyper-dimensionality as the 3^rd storyline closes around me.

“Such a waste...” I smile, “Sigmund Drozhbug’s musical talents could be put to so much better use if shared with the world, but alas, I fear, tis not to be.” To say that Roger looks relieved is to attain the fabled seventh degree of understatement at a stroll.

Roger quickly recovers his usual sanguine, devil may care composure and takes me on my first tour of g-nome portal... Introductions, back slapping, a rather intimidating first encounter with Chumba Wumba the troll, a meeting of minds in elegant discourse with Fidgy Temoral, and much much more... but ours is to Story... to cut to the chase... to surf the wave that leads us onwards ever onwards into now's whatever next, and a beetle awaits.

So, here we are... G-nome portal. I won’t bore you with unnecessary details. There is absolutely no secrecy – you have the same level of access as I do, but as with all inter-dimensional peregrinations – it’s senseless to mix levels.

“Why?” I hear you ask.

Because the five senses that you use in 3D relate to that level only, so anything I tell you about g-nome portal will have to be the kind of description that makes sense in 3D lingo – a complete waste of time. It’s a bit like one of us trying to explain the internet to one of King Canute’s crowd. “Er... it’s like you look into a mirror and you see a moving reflection, and you click on it with a mouse and then...”

Dear reader friend, understand the simple truth – you are here with me now. I’ve simply switched story threads. In this thread I flipped the switch before annihilation. From 3D perspective you’d have seen me leaping off a clifftop, vanishing into thin air... but more of that later. Flipping the switch enables me to reactivate my junk DNA so without going anywhere I find myself in a completely different world. Just think about it – you’re using one or two percent of your DNA, one or two percent of your conscious-awareness and so fail to notice every other story thread, all the other angles of perception that the great eye of I observes. Without these – you appear to be stuck in a three dimensional world in which you need cars and planes to get around, not to mention passports, credit cards and, dare I say it, mobile phones.

Well, the minute you’re ready to join the party and “F-L-I-P  T-H-A-T  S-W-I-T-C-H” as the game show host likes to shout it out, at that point you become master of unbridled perception, navigator of the quantum stream, picker and paster of story thread, but it has to be your decision.

From my perspective, I’m pleased to say, you’re already here. You see, the fact that you’re reading this means that you’re already connected with Story. The only thing lacking right now is your awareness of being here, which is where my electric blue beetle fits in... You see, beetles are the g-nomic equivalent of a noble steed that boldly takes me, errant knight of the ancient order of Gnomus Portalus on my first mission, into the gloom and glumness of 3D “I really mind what matters” reality. A mission that leaps o’er bounds of mind and matter. A mission in search of you – the vital missing thread.

Chapter 13 again - in which I completely lose track of space and time

Rewind... several readers have asked why Roger and Gill are absent when I reconnect to Faery – why they aren’t the first to greet me when I came back online.

The main reason is quarantine. It had to be 100% my decision without any outside influence – and they were the two with the most influence over me – so it was desirable to have them out of the picture. Furthermore, my communications embargo had force of law, so they couldn’t contact me even if they’d wanted to. As far as they were concerned my eventual return was a foregone conclusion, so they were busy plotting the next stages of story with Mr Wu and the gnomiki...

Now, where were we...?

“Master Wu?”

“Yes, come in. Not a word please.”

Ah yes, I remember... so without a word I follow him, or it, into a dimly lit room and we sit down on cushions. “It” I say not out of any disrespect but because Master Wu is elflike and hard to place in human terms.

We start our meditation and after five minutes or so he gets up and shows me to the door. I’m a bit surprised and ask him if anything’s the matter. He replies “no, same time on Thursday” and I go home. It’s only when I get outside and see it’s already dark I realise something has happened. I’ve lost an hour at least – maybe more. I glance at the time on my phone – 8.30 pm – I’ve been in there an hour and a half. Unbelievable. I try to reconnect my missing sense of time but can remember nothing.

Please don’t ask me to explain how I get from Tunbridge Wells in England to Manhattan. Gill tried to do so but to no avail – we have what natural scientists refer to as a missing link. But how on earth my mind fails to notice the reality shift from Kibbles Lane in Tunbridge to Manhattan’s lower East side, I cannot conceive, but fail it does – spectacularly. Suffice it to say there’s no way I could have flown the distance in the time available or with my meagre finances. So, let’s just put it down to g-nome’s teleportation and translocation department – that, and the mind’s natural ability to ignore or completely overlook anything that it simply cannot comprehend.

Thursday comes and again I knock at Master Wu’s door, determined to solve the mystery. I do everything possible to stay mentally alert and avoid losing my time awareness yet discover to my chagrin that again, approximately two hours have passed by unnoticed. This continues for three weeks before Master Wu unexpectedly tells me to open my eyes midway through our session. I’m surprised by this as I’m absolutely sure at that moment my eyes are open – that I’m looking directly at Master Wu, and also because his voice seems to come from behind me to the left – which would have him on the other side of a brick wall – but something quivers, twitches, a flickering spasm, and the next thing I know I’m sitting outside with Master Wu next to a beautiful lake covered with lotus flowers. Double take. I’m looking at Master Wu sitting under the shade of a tree by this lake. It’s warm. We’re wearing loose fitting oriental clothes, I feel very peaceful, strangely confident, warm and tingly inside, while at the same time I’m aware of myself back in Manhattan, sitting rigidly with my eyes open, oblivious to all that’s going on on this side of Mind.

I’m about to call over to myself, to attract my attention, but Master Wu asks me not to – without uttering a sound. I just know he said it, or meant to, and I’m happy to comply. So I leave my Manhattan self alone, and continue enjoying the feelings of well-being that I’m now experiencing as never before – and they seem to be unfolding like a lotus flower – taking me into new areas of conscious-awareness, starting with my little toe, working throughout my body, then connecting with the lake, with a tree nearby, with a cloud, and onwards. I’m able to experience aspects of myself and the world around me by allowing these temporary connections to form and then dissolve, sensing, almost tasting what they have to tell. It’s amazing... wonderful... yawn!

Behold, the inadequacy of words – why we so rarely dwell on the sublime in literature – as language seems to be designed to make it sound flat and dull, and always describes Lucifer’s hedonistic hell so much better than God’s harpy heaven... But the experience itself – I’m completely absorbed. Ah – there’s so much... so much to feel, to learn, to know. The present moment is like a well of unfathomable depth connecting me with myriad levels of consciousness, and I’m drinking thirstily, deprived for so long of this kind of Mindful experience. And will I remember it at all when I wake up in Master Wu’s dingy apartment?

No such luck! Zilch. That part of me is still in the dark, when I shift my awareness back to the regular level, but elsewhere, in parallel, there’s the me that  continues to experience reality from the lotus lake, which is able to watch and observe what’s going on in my normal existence. This is something new. I’m in stereo – and I know without any doubt whatsoever which part of me is more real.

“What’s the point,” I complain to Gill in a moment of lucidity. “I’ve learnt to connect with countless realms with Master Wu, yet am none the wiser in my normal state of consciousness? I haven’t even figured out the minor inconsistency of his apartment being in Manhattan. I could spend the rest of my life accumulating experience that I’m unable to apply, as I have no recollection whatsoever of whatever I’ve learnt.”

“Wait and see,” she replies. “Your body isn’t stupid. It remembers what you don’t” – which sounds suspiciously like I’m being told I’m dumb. Fair enough – I can handle that.

By the time we get the all clear signal from the gnomiki for first flight I feel a sense of... if not exactly optimism – eager, verging on heady, anticipation. I shouldn’t be at all confident. After all the sessions with Mr Wu I’m none the wiser regarding how I’m to reconnect to g-nome. It boggles the mind – somehow every single cell in my body has to become a receiver-transmitter of g-nome portal’s heavily encrypted signal, known as “Cuckoo la la”. If I’m able to tune into it then the genetic material in my cells, instead of being passive junk, suddenly realigns itself into a vast biological computer with g-nome portal as the hub and router. It’s a chrysalis moment of metamorphosis. All being well I’m going to become a different species – homo gnomicus.

Having gazed longingly at the electric blue beetle countless times I almost feel like it’s become a part of me. I’m really looking forward to this first encounter. Gill’s buzzing around the room, a little nervously, as the moon comes up. The sky is clear. It’s a beautiful night. This could have been done in the daytime but it’s felt that I’m more a night owl, so that’s why the gnomiki have gone for night flight. It feels right to me. I’m tingling with chills going up and down my spine, aware of the deep mystery that’s about to enfold me.

“Now just make yourself comfortable as Mr Wu has taught you,” Gill says. I’m thinking to myself, “that’s a joke, he’s taught me nothing,” but no sooner do I settle down than I feel myself coming effortlessly, gently, peacefully, deeply into my tautological self, and absolutely loving the feeling – like nothing could be better, nothing could be finer than simply being within myself – feeling the whole breadth, depth, range and spectrum of my body and my being, and in this state I’m once again connected, once again aware of my being with Master Wu. Time and space are irrelevant.

Whoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooosh!!!! I’m away.

Chapter 13 - in which I finally meet Master Wu

I’m having this recurring dream – I’m standing on the edge of a huge precipice with someone – I can’t make out clearly who, which is bizarre as I must know this person really well because it’s my teacher – and I’m ready for the last lesson. Today’s the day when I get to say goodbye to the world as I knew it – to cut my ties by leaping into the void.

To a 3D rational mind that may look like suicide, but appearances can be deceptive. I have no intention of dying – quite the contrary – I’m leaping from the clifftop because it’s one of the most effective ways to say goodbye to the old me, the old world in which things seemed to matter, and to return to the quantum stream – in which there’s no up, no down, no gravity or weight as such – just presence and awareness. As long as I’m fully present in the moment I cannot die. I do not have to learn to fly or try to dematerialise because as soon as I sever my ties with physical reality I revert back to the wave form. I stop being potato or cabbage and become photon - until somewhere down stream my higher-self decides to re-emerge from the isness of the quantum stream, and that’s where my body will appear.

This ain’t anything new – shamans have been practising it since time immemorial, but seeing it as a more than vivid dream is certainly new for me – and indicates that my preparations for g-nome portal reconnection are a) going ok and b) amount to something similar to the old shamanic leap.

“I’ll have the electric blue one,” I tell Gill after flicking through her catalogue of beetles. Er... no idea why – I just feel drawn to it. Gill had told me to use my intuition in selecting my first set of wings. At first I’d assumed she was referring to some kind of plane or copter – then a catalogue of beetles appeared on my I-screen. I was kind of nonplussed – “Why would I want a beetle?” I’m thinking. Well the beetle, she informs me, is a great way of getting into the nitty gritty of3D reality to do some coding – adjusting the matrix, reprogramming the Seem of Is, as we call it.

As for the I-screen – that’s a nifty bit of g-nome technology, which like everything else they use is biological. So, it’s a kind of third eye display. If you have trouble visualising that – it’s like a dream screen – where you can turn your gaze inwards and daydream in high resolution whatever it is you’re being shown. And teachers at school used to tell us off for day-dreaming! If they’d only known...

But before I can get my wings I need to go for “combat training”, as I call it. Actually, there’s not going to be any fighting but I like to make things sound dramatic. Before proceeding I have to warn you, dear readers, that space and time as you know are relative terms. Once you’ve made the conscious decision to reconnect g-nome portal they become considerably more relative. So, if you find to your surprise that I’m now in a completely different country or town for my combat training, or the time of day is different, take a chill pill and repeat seven times “I’ve agreed to suspend my disbelief – it’s only story after all.” Now, in your heart you know that’s not true – that we’re in fact redefining reality much as Galileo or Christopher Columbus did, but that’s ok – tell the mind what it wants to hear and don’t fall behind if you can help it.

“Me?”

Good question. The part of me that would have freaked out – that would have said “What the hell am I doing in Manhattan when I live in Tunbridge Wells and er... how did I get here?” you know – that part of my brain – it’s getting kind of used to the fact that I’ll simply alpha it and put it into a “just accept this coz it’s not gonna make any sense whatsoever” frame of mind. So the mind is learning to let go of its old way of thinking. In fact, half the time I don’t initially notice, it’s only afterwards I start scratching my head and wondering – was I really in Manhattan just now? Well, once you realise that Faery comprises numerous interconnected realities, crossing from one to another becomes second nature. In actual fact, all realities are stacked right next to each other on a kind of shelf – like CDs on a disk changer, so crossing from one to another doesn’t involve a great journey. It’s more like cutting and pasting on your computer – you’re simply inserted into a parallel window. And, because all realities are one – nothing is created or destroyed – you’re just a transposition of yourself, like transposing music from one key to another, or translating from one language to another.

“I can handle that,” I like to affirm. It seems to work.

So I make my selection, and then the gnomiki reconnect me to g-nome.

Yes, I know, you’re not too clear on what g-nome might be. Me neither. Er, it’s like we’ve got this DNA stuff and our scientists thought a lot of it was “junk” serving no useful purpose, and they were right – it could serve no useless purpose in our 3D world of “what matters”, but charges up and electrifies vast areas of our conscious-awareness just as soon as we flip the switch and re-enter Faery’s quantum stream.

...Well that’s the theory anyway. Quite what Faery or the quantum stream may be I have little or no idea. Gill frequently tries to explain but I give up when I feel my eyes turning to marbles. As she herself says – these things just need to be experienced... Ever the practical beetle!

So here we are, preparing to embark on our first field mission into Faery with a brand new set of wings awaiting.

“Timing is the essence,” Gill tells me. This is because there are gateways... doorways from 3D that come and go, as the whole of reality is breathing, pulsating, swaying. There are countless cycles at work – the most important being the lunar cycle, but the sun, the planets, stars, seasons and many more all play a part. Fortunately I’m not the one doing the timing calculations – that’s up to the gnomiki. They’re perfectionists and pinpoint the best moment to flip the switch. In fact, they say that with perfect timing anyone can reconnect to Faery single-handedly – it’s never ceased to be our natural state of being – we have intuitive knowledge of how to do this and a kind of magnetic attraction that can overcome 3D’s gravitational field. But I’m doing it with the best support available, and an electric blue beetle lined up, waiting to take me to infinity.

Gill gives me a list of recommendations which, though not strictly necessary, are known to make the process somewhat easier. Salt baths two or three times a week, a veggie diet that doesn’t exactly fill me with excitement, but I cut down my meat intake as a gesture of compliance, regular exercise and meditation classes twice a week with Master Wu.

Master Wu?

Yes, I know, you couldn’t make it up, could you? but Master Wu really exists in a fashion of sorts. I go to a beaten up alley in downtown Manhattan, climb up a rickety staircase on the outside of the building and enter a corridor that doesn’t appear to be on any floor in particular. There I find apartment number 17 and ring the bell. A moment later the door opens a chink. “Master Wu?”

“Yes, come in. Not a word please.”

Chapter 12b - in which Josh dodges bullets

“Wait a minute Josh... just pause right there if you don’t mind.”

I spin around and see my boss Emily Sticklebee, who evidently slipped in while I was engrossed in typing this, and seems to have been reading it over my shoulder.

“Ah, Emily, yes... the report will be ready on your desk tomorrow at 9 am sharp. Don’t worry about a thing. I’m 100% on top of it.”

“Josh, the report has nothing whatsoever to do with what you’ve just had the nerve to state. As a mathematician, a financial engineer and auditor, I take exception to your absurd assertion that 0=1.”

I’m going to have to wriggle out of this one – Emily, I notice, is taking a keen interest in g-nome portal – she’s been following the blog from the get go and reading all the comments, somewhat maliciously I feel, but she’s basically on-side. Something, gut intuition if you like, tells me she’s gonna flip before too long.

“Flip?”

Ah... Chancery XXL – nice to have you back. No – I’m not using the word “flip” in the “flip her lid” sense – it’s just, in some respects, this diminutive word comes closest to describing the complete 180° shift of perspective that comes with “Faery awakening”. But now is not the time to deal with Emily’s Gestapo-lite questioning techniques, or linguistic analysis... there’s too much at stake. A tingling in the beetle mark... I don’t hear a word from man or beast... my embargo is not broken as such, but I do sense that Roger’s not far from being at hand... and a kind of spark sends Emily off on a completely different train of thought.

“Yes, Josh, the coffee has definitely gone from bad to worse. It’s bad for staff morale – I agree. I’ll see what I can do about it.”

I swear I can almost hear Roger laughing in the background – but again, I state for the record, that there has been no verifiable infraction of my embargo – so I don’t feel violated or threatened. Quite strange really, au contraire – I feel elated. The magic of Faery is uplifting.

So, before I run out of time, Emily’s bound to come back in a moment or two – what I was trying to say is that we have here a sense of “Yes” which is not polarised. Life is affirmative – it’s a kind of game that’s actually fun to play as long as we avoid turning it into something over-serious, over-regulated, heavy handed, lacking in poetry or light... Doing so, as we invariably do, we’re obstructing the very life-force that we host. Cuckoo la la. Perversely, we’re ready to do almost anything to prevent the goose from laying the golden egg – so sure are we that Life is fundamentally flawed in nature, an unruly child in need of stern discipline and mind control. Talk about Garden of Eden redux, or what! Like the God that prefers to banish Adam and Eve from paradise for all time because of a minor misdemeanour, we punish ourselves with guilt and booooredom rather than accepting that the life-force cannot be contained within the square walls of top down regulation.

So what if I broke the law? So what if I ate the apple? Do you really mean to say that it’s going to screw up the whole of creation – that there’s no give in this magical system – that rules take precedence over learning-by-experience or being a free spirit?

“No, I’m never going to forgive you for stealing that apple – I’m seriously displeased. You’re out of here, you two, and you’re gonna reeeeaally suffer from now on – lots of pestilence and nasty stuff. That’ll teach you.”

Way to go God. You show ‘em!

Fast forward to the Jesus story and you have a man taking on the well-intentioned Pharisees – “Er... guys, lighten up, I know I’m not supposed to help sick people because I don’t have a government permit and it’s out of hours, but you know, it’s such fun and something inside, let’s call it my intuition, my conscience, tells me the rules suck, that they represent a lifeless system, a kind of machine code that should not, cannot, er... must not take precedence over human beings, or, being human for that matter.”

Duh!!! Kind of obvious really if you think about it. Don’t forget to insert nice little bible quote about “Sabbath being made for man and not vice versa” – you get my drift?

So, the life force has been repressed right from the very outset, it would seem – from “God” down to every petty official along the way. We probably do the same to ourselves without even realising it “No I mustn’t pay attention to the irrepressible urgings of my soul to kick off my shoes and walk barefoot on the grass, to write a poem about a fallen acorn, to dive naked in the oozy river, to... whatever, whatever...” Please don’t think I’m advocating nudity in any shape or form, or treat this as a recommendation to swim in oozy water – consult your own public health advisor – in no way can I be held liable for these or any other recommendations... blah, blah, blah. “Of course you can sue me, I liberated your soul,” said the prophet and mystic Archibald Fenugreek, “but how are you going to serve me notice if I’m of the essence, and neither here nor there,” he said as he dematerialised in a puff of sweet fragrant air.

Dear haters, detractors and nay-sayers – I understand where you’re coming from. I don’t blame you. I sincerely sympathise, and yet, at the same time, be aware that you’re cutting your nose to spite your face. Any negativity you direct at me, or anyone else for that matter, only works within the closed system of 3D material reality in which “what” really “matters”, whatever that may mean. As soon as we revert to Is – that which simply is – in my particular case this involves un-disconnecting Faery by deleting P-42 – then your “negativity”, “hate”, “anger” and “abuse” merely refer to various instances of self-denial, self-negation and self-immolation, which are as painful as striking yourself with a rock. Ouch! I may seem to be important, worthy of your ire and in need of surgical correction, but truly I assure you, I am of no significance whatsoever when we come back to the ultimate arbiter of what Is – the inter-luminal life-matters curve.

Emily Sticklebee is lingering suspiciously by the photocopier machine – she seems to suspect something, but I’m just about done.

I have to thank you humbly best beloved nay-sayers and detractors – you, more than anything else, have helped me re-evaluate my relation to Faery. It’s like this hatred which is obviously just coming from fear, has brought me back to face my own fear – the fear of either losing my mind, or of having to open it up completely with nowhere to hide my thoughts – for such is the nature of telepathy. It’s also helped me confront my ego pride – the way I needed to believe that I, as a human, am unique – the only rational thinker – the only being that truly matters. Ursula the spider, the one that spoke playfully with me the morning after my day out with Gill, completely blew away my biological sense of superiority. Something snapped. My sense of me was under life-threatening assault and I responded with knee-jerk predictability. In fact, I now realise, Roger and Gill were completely aware that this is how it would play out. Back at g-nome portal they’d even been placing bets on how long it would take me to deal with my personal crisis of pride and prejudice, which is really just a result of the massive sense of vulnerability felt by all of us who have been living in the darkness of P-42. No need to hate or blame ourselves – it’s all just grist for life's mill. We’ve all, in fact, just been playing a part as consummate players do, willing ourself to believe what in our heart we know is not true...

 I make a snap decision. It isn’t rushed. It’s one hundred percent my decision coming from the certainty of moment 27, and Self.

“Ok...” I announce to whoever is out there, “I want in... I was wrong... I’ve changed my mind. Roger, Gill, I’m ready for Faery.”

For a few minutes, then a few hours, then a day – nothing.

“I’ve blown it,” I tell myself. “I’ve rejected the greatest gift I could have had – the gift of Faery. What an ass I am.” I really feel it, and it’s good because it confirms what I already suspected, that I truly have something to lose – that Faery is more than a whim, that it matters to me more than anything else, more than I imagined possible.

This culminates in a moment of panic: “Oh my God! What am I gonna do? How am I going to reconnect?” Then a flash of inspiration comes to me. All those forbidding signs I’d put up in my mind – “no trespassing, stay out, insects not welcome”, I head back to the scene of my mind’s final stand... It’s amazing how clearly I can see them now, the mental images, barbed wire, bold red lettering on large wooden boards. I tear them all down, one by one, make a big bonfire and burn them, then put up new signs saying “Faery open-source zone”, “welcome all friends of Faery”, “insect teleportation hub now active” and a few more that I’m too embarrassed to mention.

It’s good. I’m content. Whatever this might lead to, at this moment in time and space I’m absolutely...

“Absolutely what?” a voice comes in, it’s Ursula.

“Has he done it?” another voice – that’ll be Theophilus I-be-Merry, no idea how I know his name.

“About bloody time,” Chumba Wumba snarls.

“Splendid,” Caratacus Gomwick.

Only Gill and Roger are silent for the moment... and at this precise moment Emily Sticklebee comes back in with a large, healthy dose of reality, but I manage to hit the “send” button just in time.

Chapter 12a - in which you the readers goblin me

I kind of suspected the Goblin story was going to ruffle a few feathers here and there. Here are a few of the hundreds of comments I’ve been sifting through today. Oh the joys of being online 24/7 or 27/4 as the Goblins have it.

“You’re off your rocker. Haven’t you got anything better to do than write a load of twaddle about goblins?” Mary Maddison

“I thought you shut down Faery and said you wanted nothing further to do with it, so what’s with all the evangelising. You can’t have your cake and eat it.” Martin Luther

“What right have you to claim you’re the one who’s working with Faery and reprogramming reality – it looks like you’re developing a nasty strain of the Jesus Christ complex.” Johnny Deep

“If you’re so happy being a house in Goblin why don’t you stay there and leave us biological humans alone.” Signor Alfredo Terentino

“You’re in league with the devil – you’re just trying to make evil acceptable. That’s the worst kind of evil I can think of.” Stack Mush

“Drop dead Josh. Only kidding – carry on living - you’re helping redefine the term “senseless drivel” which is a service to humanity.” Penny Jibble

“Put a sock in it if you know what’s good for you.” Blugspat104

To be honest I’m easily demoralised, and reading through pages and pages of this stuff made me doubt my mission – and whether I should continue sharing my experiences with you, dear readers. It wasn’t all bad – there were several beautiful letters of encouragement – some of them from old ladies who were obviously half-mad themselves but still, they made me feel special.

To answer some of your most frequent questions –

·        No – I don’t worship the devil, goblins, beetles or anything else for that matter.

·        Neither am I working in real estate in Florida, Detroit or West Hampton.

·        Being a house in Goblin is not about standing around doing nothing, though that’s understandably how you’d see it on this side of reality.

·        No, there’s no record of insanity in my family, surprisingly, which is why it’s all the more bizarre that I should have been selected for this mission.

·        Yes, I have every intention of continuing to lead a normal life, get married, have children and drive a car.

·        No, I don’t know anything much about crystals, Nostradamus, Madame Blavatsky, David Icke or Zoroaster. I’m not psychic and I don’t take drugs.

·        Nor do I have any phobias that I’m aware of – in fact I was the picture of mental health and dull middle class respectability before I had my encounter with Roger.

The worst of what’s happening is that a few of my most persistent detractors have got hold of my work details and have been messaging my employers with the obvious intention of harming my career at Boodle & Badwise Nobs, a highly respected bathroom fittings company. That, I consider, ungentlemanly conduct, but Aargen Darvurg told me to expect the worst, and he should know as he’s been a party to much of the world’s negativity over the last several thousand years or so.

You might wonder, given all the above, how I’m holding my head above water, being the unexceptional person that I am... To tell the truth, 27 days ago this would have reduced me to a pile of quivering frogspawn, but things have changed dramatically during the last month. I’ve got this completely different perspective ever since I reconnected with the inner Self courtesy of Gill’s flying circus acrobatics, and got myself well and truly grounded in time-space as the dwelling place, non-biological friend and confidante of Aargen Darvurg. Learning to use the nifty beetle mark to see through the glimmer-glamour of 3D material reality and its ENORMOUS and completely unconcealable contradictions has also played its part. Time has worked its magic, or magic has worked its time – as they say in Goblin, and the unripe fruit that was bitter is now full-bodied and sweet.

The void that Faery had opened up – that left me nowhere to hide, that seemed to be actively ingesting me, dissolving my ties to the real world, has not disappeared, but something’s holding me together and I don’t know what. Something’s making me feel a quiet assurance that basically all is well – that Story ain’t prefixed by words such as scary, or horror, senseless or meaningless. Story is more than any prefix or label – and now that I’m back in touch with Faery, barring dealing with insects, I feel this deeeeeeeeeep and waaaaaaaarm sense of yesssssssssssss (sorry if that sounds too snakelike for you – but yeeeeeeeeeees is not the right sound either).

YES... A vast, enormous, gimongous word that has the potential to start a chain reaction of limitless proportions. A Yesness of Is. A storyful life that matters – just because.

You might well object. You might say that “yes” is fundamentally no different from “no” – that it’s just one form of polarity – and that “yes” is therefore inherently divisive. We should all revert to the mean which is “definitely maybe”. And certainly, that’s logical enough – but logic in itself is a kind of machine, or a machine’s way of thinking. Ultimately we have to go beyond logic, or base our logic on LIFE. That’s the beauty of spending time in Goblin – for in doing so I have to traverse the life-matter curve – it’s become second nature – to feel the relationship between the two, for surely life experiences matter in the same way matter experiences life.

Just think about it for a moment or 27, if you will. The life-matter curve – sometimes referred to as the life-matters curve depending on whether you’re speaking as scientist or humanist.

So, here I am – a human as any other – getting to know the other side of Story – in a place where by all reckoning I should be nothing – or just inert matter – but what do I find in actual fact? What do I experience? Even as a non-biological “dwelling place” I’m still conscious, still in some respect of the word “alive” – still able to participate in the magic of story, regardless of the fact that I have no arms, legs, mouth or nose – because, all things being equal, 0=1 and that changes everything.

Chapter 11 - in which the goblins take me in

That’s the strange thing about language – you never can be too sure what it’s saying. Ambiguity abounds, does it not? Was I "taken in" by the goblins hospitably as a guest, or was I hoodwinked, fooled, deceived? You just can’t tell from that short sentence – which is probably why language is vastly overrated as a means of communication, unless by “communication” you’re referring to spreading doubt and confusion.

Here in Goblin they have a different way of communicating and I’m not referring to telepathy. Don’t get me wrong – they’re perfectly able to use telepathy if they wish to avoid confusion or ambiguity, but half the fun of communication is where it mistakenly leads you – so they’ve made an art form of it. Instead of writing the way we do, by putting together logical sentences of words, they use grunts which are like letters. There are several hundred grunts – or multiples of that if you consider tonal variations. Rather than thinking what they’re trying to say and proceeding accordingly, they use goblin magic and select random grunts, snarlings, snorts, whistles and whinings and, hey presto, there you have it – an unbreakable code.

This would all seem like a complete waste of time were it not for the fact that nature abhors a vacuum. An unbreakable code is the closest you can get to a perfect vacuum linguistically speaking, so nature flips reality and fills the unbreakable code with a unique stream of sense and meaning. The end result is that the readers of the gibberish that was written according to the strictest principles of indeterminacy find themselves spontaneously gleaning sense and meaning from what can only be described as a quantum language. It exists only in the reading of the particular text. Astonishing, if you think about it. You know exactly what you’re reading, but you can’t for the life of you tell how you know what you know. Nature does it all for you.

Goblins apply the same principle to almost everything they do. If they require a new dwelling place – what we’d call a house, they don’t plan it and build it according to that plan. They go out and search for seemingly random objects – a pine cone, a stone, a motorbike, a dirty wrapper, a few words that were overheard at the bus stop, a look of confusion, concern or consternation that was seen on the old woman’s face, a cloud that floated the wrong way – there’s always one – and anything else that they feel inspired to use for the purpose in hand. All these objects and non-objects are brought back to the new dwelling site, and in accordance with their notions of music, dance, poetry and non-sense these objects are given to the moment. Now remember that Goblin is not space-time as our reality but time-space – so the moment is a place where you can store and position objects, just as a shelf is in our reality. That moment then acts as a kind of seed. If it is watered with care and attention for 27 days then at the end of this period a dwelling will materialise. In fact, Aargen Darvurg assures me the 27 days are not essential – that it can be done as a rushed job in 27 hours, 27 minutes or even 27 seconds, but most, I am told, prefer to make a celebration of it and use the allotted 27 days.

Well by now, dear reader, you’re probably aware that something has shifted in story – or in my version of story at least. You will recall that the last chapter ended somewhat hesitantly, even gloomily – with the words “but where to flee – I have no answer”, which was the honest truth at the time of writing, and was still true until half an hour ago, but in the meantime I discovered that Goblin has been reverse engineering a timeline for me – they’re good at doing things backwards you know – at least backwards from our perspective.

So to try and avoid over-confusing the issue – about 27 minutes ago I discovered that I have an encounter with a goblin called Aargen Darvurg. This encounter is initially the kind that elicits a Munchian scream – have a look at the picture and you’ll know what I’m talking about. Now the scream is an existential moment – it’s like you and the universe completely fall out of step, out of kilter and then swap places. Unnerving is not the word. It’s like every atom in your body has been realigned... I’ll try not to go on about it – but when to my enormous surprise I discover that I haven’t been obliterated, that in fact I’ve already been visiting Goblin for the last, yes, you’ve guessed it, 27 days, then I realise that nothing is quite as it seems.

It’s the first time in my life that I’ve ever experienced what it’s like to be a house – and I’m enjoying the experience greatly. You see, here in time-space we’re able to experience the other side of the Earthy 3D reality you know and probably cherish. Here, for example, the goblins are loving, gentle peaceful beings. Rather cute. A cross between a bunny rabbit, a chinchilla and a snowflake. Now that they’ve taken me in as one of their houses I’m plugged into the system – I’m one of them – which is a beautiful sharing, caring experience. Ah the joys of Goblini.

So why, you might ask, do they appear so frightful and demonic in our reality? Why indeed? And why were they there with King Cnut at the very inception of the dreaded Modern Era?

Ah... these are indeed good questions worthy of serious consideration. To be honest it’s difficult to answer them if you’ve not yet experiencing “what is”. If you’re still in “what matters” reality then almost everything you take for granted only makes sense because the wires are crossed.

Aargen Darvurg has been very helpful – more than helpful, I should add. Although officially I have the status of “habitable dwelling place” – goblins do not have the same fixed ideas about what matters – they do not really distinguish between biological and non-biological life forms – and on this side of creation we humans are most definitely non-biological. Aargen Darvurg is happy to maintain friendly relations with the other side of the life-matters curve – and spends many 27s of moment locked in conversation with his new dwelling place. More of that at a later date. The goblins, I need hardly add, would appreciate it if we could be a little more charitable to them in our reality, but to date they’ve had no such luck. We humans have at best ignored and more often than not demonised them.

So, where was I? Yes, things get a bit back to front in one’s mind – it’s a lot like jet lag – passing through Munch’s scream is just like passing through the vortex at the centre of our universe – and coming into the equal and opposite universe on the other side of zero point. Interestingly, their universe would be the size of a pinhead if you could transpose it into our reality, but then the same could be said of what we consider time: the whole of time in our universe would amount to 1/27 of a moment in theirs...

The mind, dear readers, if you could stroke it gently like a dear cat or dog, give it a biscuit and let it settle down for a snooze, you’ll find it much easier to tune in to Goblin – and trust me, if you would, tuning in is the only way to make head or tails of it.

So, let me give an example of how we can work with Goblin rather than trying to explain what the mind cannot yet comprehend. There’s obviously lots of negativity in our reality, and goblins are drawn in magnetically to assist with negativity – for negativity must flow through the system until it can once again become positive. So, yes, goblins in our universe are most certainly connected with all sorts of negative happenings, and if you activate your beetle mark you’ll see one standing next to Adolf Hitler grinning wickedly, but that doesn’t mean the goblin has any personal involvement in it. The goblin is more just a servant of nature – including human nature. When we closed down Faery, that didn’t make it cease to exist – it merely became invisible to us humans. Well the goblin doesn’t instigate any negativity – merely acts, dances, performs in accordance with our negative thoughts and ideas. We might unknowingly send a goblin to raid someone’s house if we’re angry with that person, or even worse. Fortunately, goblins act without malice even if we humans don’t.

Now, if you are able to face your deepest darkest fears, if you are able to face what you’ve been trying not to see – then something happens – you’re able to see the goblin. At first you’re horrified, mesmerised – it looks like the devil itself, but then nature is rightfully restored – you see your goblin transform right in front of your eyes – that all the fear and evil was being projected onto it – that goblin was just like a screen – nothing more – and you were the one filling it with your own deepest darkness.

Well folks, that may sound reassuring but trust me – it ain’t gonna help you much if and when you decide the time has come to face the goblin standing opposite you, lurking in the shadows of your fear. It’s still gonna scare the heebie jeebies out of you. It scares me just thinking about it – but fear – beloved reader – what is fear I ask you? Think of the wonder of coming back to all that is, and that fear pales to insignificance.

Because goblins are the bearers of negative polarity in our reality it means that we can use them to solve the world’s worst problems. They can handle any situation no matter how dire – for them it’s just energy. It’s amazing really – we’re so fixated with solving problems by material intervention, we fail to notice the simplest most direct route – to fix stuff at the quantum level 0=1. Goblins can take us into any disaster – like Fukushima for example – and all being equal can turn it into story.

“Er... sorry Josh, not quite sure what you’re on about...”

“Oh, nice to have you back, Zeph. "Turning it into story" is what happens when we reactivate Faery. It makes no sense whatsoever until then... Suffice it to say that you are an integral part of the entire universe – so integral that you can, at a quantum level, completely reprogram the universe, even things that have already happened, if you’re willing to do so.”

“What, you mean I can reprogram Fukushima and make it go away?”

“You can do better than that – you can use Fukushima to transform the world into a garden paradise if you so wish – but only if you reconnect Faery, otherwise you’re powerless to work with Story.”

“But Story’s just a thing you read in a book – it doesn’t alter reality.”

“Correct Zeph, that's true - there are story books but there's something else that no one talks about - Story itself. Reality isn’t going to be altered as long as you’re fixed in the linear, modern reality controlled by what King Cnut did a thousand years ago. That’s a fear based reality that is rigid and locked by all its conspirators. It’s not, however, the only reality. Once you’re ready to reconnect, reality is no longer controlled by fear or someone else’s story – you become the active force, the Storymaster.”

“Ok – so maybe I can change reality – but why would I want to work with goblins – they’re evil. I just know it.”

“Yes, they are evil and your knowledge is good as far as it goes. But it only goes as far as King Cnut. No further. If you go back before the inception of the modern era you come to Faery, and goblins are negative in the same way night is dark or the south pole of a magnet is negative. If you pass through the zero point of space and time and visit their side of the life-matter curve, you discover the positive side to their negative – and it’s a joyous sight to behold. You’re no longer trapped in a duality of good and bad. Hallelujah J

Chapter 10 - in which I sift through the debris and discover beauty

I’m on my own really. Now that I’ve seen all that happened at Cnut’s beach party, and seen how it continues to this day – there’s no one I can turn to for help, as they’re all avoiding the goblin that’s standing before them, Dr Fenwick included.

Crash! The whole of my reality support structure has collapsed in one fell swoop. Nothing that anyone is saying or doing is going to make a blind bit of difference, coz they’re all avoiding the simple truth, they’re all players in Cnut’s drama whether they realise it or not. The only ones who are for real are the ones who’ve agreed to face their darkest fears and see the nasty looking goblin.

You know, I’ve been back to that beach more times than I care to remember, and I was wondering if the goblin is fundamentally evil – a demon of sorts – and yes – in 3D that’s how you’d see it, but in terms of what is – from Faery perspective it perfectly matches whatever we needed in order to enter the particular side branch of story that we call the “modern age”. In their natural habitat, doing what goblin’s naturally do – they’re no better or worse than anything else – though you’re going to find that exceptionally hard to believe the first time you lay eyes on this ugly brute. You see, in order to create this somewhat artificial reality – in order to create this deviation from story’s broadest channel, it was necessary to cross wires – and that’s bound to create disharmony and ugliness. So with the wires crossed, and humanity willing to go along with Cnut’s proposal, we find ourselves in a world where it makes perfect sense to amass wealth at the expense of fellow humans, where it makes sense to destroy the very planet you’re living on, where it makes sense to live in fear of death and ask what the meaning of life might be – what else would you expect when the wires are crossed.

Uncrossing them ain’t difficult – it simply requires you to face what is – unconditionally. Now, when I say “ain’t difficult” in a sort of stylised American slang, I mean it doesn’t require any advanced, technical or magicky knowledge. It’s all good old fashioned heart based soul yearning for what simply is, as opposed to what seems to be. Once I’ve had enough of all the lies and deception – and they’ll never end until I’ve really had enough and completely made up my mind to be done with them – why then it’s child’s play. A moment of crisis. A complete shift of perspective. A sudden awareness that nothing is as it seems, and then, shock horror, a grotesque goblin leering at me – doing everything in its power to get me to step back into the modern mind of “what matters”.

It’s a bit like the old folk tale Tam Lin – his pregnant bride-to-be can only rescue him from the Queen of the Fairies if she holds on to him through thick and thin, even when he turns into a lion, a bear, a lizard, a snake... When he finally turns into a burning coal she’s to throw him into the well, and then he’s hers – happy ending. Well, the modern mind is willing to try almost any trick to get us to back off. It’ll put the fear of God into us, give us panic attacks, make us see demons, whatever it takes to keep us in thrall to Cnut’s story amendment – but once you understand the process – that neither your mind nor the goblin nor anyone else can hurt you – then it’s all just water off a duck’s back. You face your deepest darkest fear – and find yourself exactly where you were a moment ago – only this is real and that was seem. Here your mind is your own and working in harmony with Story, whereas there, in seem, the wires are crossed and no matter what you do, or how hard you try, you always end up serving the very cause you most wish to oppose and defeat. That’s a paradox if ever I saw one.

So, are you ready to get REAL? Are you ready to face the simple truth, the isness of be. It ain’t hard though it’s going to rock you to the very core. Can you handle that, or are you a drama queen who’d prefer to die than to admit you’ve been living a half-baked lie, that you were complicit in this right from the very start – even though you like to think “they’re the bad guys” and you’re the unwilling victim.

“Er... Josh old man. I don’t mean to interrupt you in the flow and all, but how can you say that we were all complicit? That was like a thousand years ago. We couldn’t possibly have had anything to do with it – unless you’re being all biblical about this and saying the sins of the fathers are visited on the children?”

Oh, hi Gwyn, nice of you to join me. Yes, I do tend to get carried away with my tub thumping rhetoric, don’t I... now, remember that this is story so time as you know it doesn’t really exist. You see, in terms of story we’re in fractal territory. Nothing new is ever created unless you go back to the source, back to creation itself, and you can’t do that when you or your fathers have agreed to look away collectively, and enter a reality in which “what” –  “matters”. Unless you consciously choose to go back and deal with the issue, you’re nothing more than a subset, a fraction of your fathers. It means that, strange though it may seem, until you deal with the issue within yourself, you were there, present on the strand with Cnut, no less than your great-grandfather³⁶ all those years ago.

But that’s er...

Impossible. Yes. Precisely. It makes absolutely no sense to the rational mind which insists on thinking within the box of linear space-time. End of story. Don’t even bother trying to go down that road – it ain’t gonna work. Leave the rational modern mind of “what matters” at home to clean the dishes, and experience this directly if you choose to, consciously, if and only if you truly desire to get back to what simply is: the isness of be.

Er... so I have to just take your word for it – isn’t that what you’re saying?

No Gwyn, my main man. Take it with a large pinch of salt, or a vodka martini, or however you like – it’s entirely up to you. But if, perchance, you’ve noticed that nothing seems to be right in your world, and that try as you might, collectively, you just don’t seem to be able to fix it – you might, for a change, consider that this is precisely the way things should and would naturally be when you enter a conspiracy with sorcerer King Cnut to shunt reality from Story’s mainline quantum stream into a fetid sideline that promises the world but never quite delivers. It’s a mathematical certainty that your world will, and, can only collapse as it has an expiry date. Such is the nature of story. No illusion can last forever, like a bubble blown – no matter how hard people try to keep it going. Why do you think there was so much killing in the 20^th Century?

No idea.

Blood sacrifices – feeding the beast, so to speak. It was the only way to keep that reality from collapsing under the weight of its internal contradictions. But this, you see, is a kind of ponzi scheme that requires exponential increases to sustain its self-consuming appetite. In any case, there are a load of children coming into the world now who weren’t signatories to this agreement – which is making it even harder to sustain the so called “modern age”.

So how come you have children slipping through the net into this world if they’re not part of this story?

Well, that’s because Cnut and his followers were never able to completely cut out Faery. People went along with their version of reality unwillingly, under compulsion, but they carried on being human beings, inspired by nature, writing, painting, dancing, creating, and so they opened portals, gateways into this reality, which came to look like a swiss cheese riddled with holes.

So you mean that art really matters? It’s not just a pleasant distraction?

Yep – 100%. It was Dostoevsky who said beauty would save the world, and he wasn’t talking about a beautiful woman or landscape. “Beauty” is seen whenever we create something magical – for to do so we transcend the illusion of our material age, and rediscover Faery’s limitless...

Er... limitless what?

You can call it that if you like – Faery’s limitless “what”, though I prefer to give it no name whatsoever.

Listening to myself speaking with Gwyn and others it’s bizarre – I sound like I’m Faery’s greatest advocate, selling its produce and wares, but I’m the one who chose to shut it out, and the thought of going back to Gill and Roger’s world is still off limits - too much to handle.

So I’m in a kind of twilight zone – on the one hand I’m using Faery magic by activating my beetle mark. Doing so means I can see the wood from the trees and make sense of our cart-before-the-horse, wires-are-crossed reality. And Faery is growing bigger regardless of my resistance, for example, there’s what I call "hyperspace". It’s not quite the same as in Star trek – you don’t need a spaceship travelling at the speed of light because light doesn’t actually have a speed at all. Hyperspace, as I use the term, refers to space that doesn’t fit into our 3D box reality grid – what you call the matrix. The only trouble is you’re almost completely unaware of it as long as you’re stuck in the modern mind of “what really matters”. Once you start facing reality – once you’ve dealt with the goblin and his cohorts, yes, there’s more than one, but of that another time, you’re ready to see what is... and being multi-dimensional, it goes without saying that space-time is not going to be uniformly even. It’s like a river where the current varies, or a sea that is tidal and has currents flowing in different directions. It can also be like a website with pop-up windows and hyperlinks connecting with other sites. I tell you this merely as a teaser – to whet your imagination – to encourage you to consider the alternative to your flat Cartesian 3D reality.

I seem to be losing the battle as you can see. There seems to be no way back into the Matrix. I have no wish to deny the truth of what I have learnt, what is...

So, here I am, like King Cnut an age earlier, on the fast diminishing strand before the floodtide of Faery, yet feeling decidedly un-Canutish – more James the Second-ish – planning to make myself scarce, to flee unceremoniously, disguised as a woman if need be. I’m not proud. I’m not afraid to be the laughing stock of popular history. Sanity rather than salinity is my chief concern and “impending” is the operative word, as I sense the sickle sword of Faery slicing through the final threads of my lifeline to normality. But where to flee – I have as yet no answer.