Chapter 3 at last – in which I nearly have kittens

Ah, there you are!
We’ve finally got clear of all that administrative interference by Caratacus Gomwick and his back office stooge Theophilus I-be-Merry, so make yourselves comfortable, dim the lights, let us rejoin story as close to the point where we left off as is gnomically possible.
I’ve been asked to give you a brief recap so here goes...
Josh and Gill have just introduced themselves. Roger is somewhere in the background providing emergency alpha support to Josh’s encephalogram – which in layman’s terms means stopping him from having kittens. With his brainwaves in a deep-meditative state Josh is now able to handle the shock of discovering that nothing is quite as it seems... without losing his marbles.  

“Hi Gill,” I murmur sleepily. “Nice to make your acquaintance.”

“Likewise,” she replies, businesslike. “Now let me begin...”

I don’t know about you, but I’ve never been a great fan of beginnings, particularly when someone makes it sound like embarking on an arduous and rather disturbing journey into the unknown, but what can you do? Delay the inevitable? Paddle your way back into the comforting womb of blissful ignorance? No, a human I believe must face reality, however absurd or impossible it may seem, so somewhat decisively I make the decision to meekly acquiesce, and deliver myself over to Gill’s “beginning”...

“Roger, as you’ve correctly surmised was the beetle that flew into your forehead four weeks ago. Although doing so left a bruise, he never actually made physical contact but instead opened an inter-dimensional gateway, a portal to what is known as “Faery”.

“Faery?” my voice a harmonic convergence of curiosity and scepticism.

“Yes,” she presses on unperturbed, “it was an exquisitely timed manoeuvre made possible by the momentary confluence of innumerable factors temporal and spatial, not to mention Roger’s somewhat reckless audacity! I’m pleased to say the operation was a complete success, though it could so easily have ended in disaster.”

“Disaster? Er... isn’t that somewhat overstating things? A small bruise on the forehead would hardly amount to a disaster.”

Gill clicks her mouth disapprovingly, unimpressed by my failure to appreciate the enormity of what has been undertaken.

“The least error on Roger’s part would have collapsed the fabric of space-time around you. The implosion would have been like detonating a nuclear device.”

“What – a nuclear bomb?”

“Yes, a rather small but no less devastating nuclear bomb – somewhere around the size of an acorn but an inch from your head. I think it would be fair to describe the result as catastrophic for the two of you and anyone else within a thirty metre radius.”

Gill pauses, expectantly, while I process what’s just been said. At first blank. It makes no sense.

Then I feel it... Crash! My body reacts viscerally.

A sudden onslaught of fear and shock batter at the periphery of my drowsy alpha state. Roger’s soothing magic continues to hold back the clamouring horde at the gate and, mercifully, my pulse soon reverts to its steady Sunday afternoon stroll in the park.

Gill, gauging my recovery, resumes: “As I said already, Roger couldn’t have done this without your tacit consent, though at present you’re unaware of having given it.”

“I wonder why?” I think to myself.

“Because you have not yet fully reconnected g-nome.”

“Reconnected g-nome?”

“Yes,” Gill continues, “but first things first – we have to keep this in sequence...

Roger opens up Faery which means that you are now able to access your total bandwidth. Instead of being trapped in just one narrow segment of your conscious-awareness – the “I’m just me and that’s that” bit, you now have access to the whole “All that I am – all that I Be” should you choose to use it. That’s why you’re able to hear me speaking now. That’s why Roger risked his life to assist you – because you elected to make this reconnection.”

“I did?” I muse.

“You must have – it can never be forced on anyone. Somewhere in your vast sub-consciousness you must have started transmitting Faery signal, thereby indicating your readiness to awaken. Roger simply noticed it and responded accordingly.”

“But why would he risk his life?”

“Good question. I expect he’s thinking the same thing.” There’s a moment’s silence... “You can ask him yourself – he can hear you if you invite him in.”

“He can?”

“Sure, go ahead, ask him whatever you like.”

For a moment, confusion, I don’t know how to address someone I can’t see, still less a beetle. Then I hear myself speak from my bewilderment, querulously:

“Why Roger? Why did you do it?”

“Because... it matters,” Roger responds calmly. “Because... all is One.”

I listen intently, but more than the words I feel his response.

He takes me deeper into his confidence:

“At the time I gave it no thought. I acted with certainty on an impulse which is why it was, I felt, perfectly safe to do so, despite the undeniable risk. In a while you’ll begin to see that you had as big a part to play in this as I did – so congratulations to you Josh, and, welcome to Faery!”
Roger senses my seriousness and ends with a playful “Over and out!” 

“Welcome to Faery,” I muse, lost for words... lost for aught...”

Nearly chapter 3 - on behalf of Caratacus Gomwick

Dear g-nomers one and all,

I’ve been inundated with messages, emails and comments following yesterday’s Facebook posting by Caratacus Gomwick. Caratacus doesn’t hang around much in this dimension so it’s been left to me to pick up the pieces and try and sort through the flotsam and jetsam of mind and matter.

“Mind and matter?” I hear you asking. Oh the joys of telepathy!

Yes – “do you mind and does it matter?”

You see, in this particular reality we tend to mind about everything, and we’re always convinced that “it matters” means “it’s important”. Oops! Talk about thinking backwards. You see dear g-nomers, what matters only matters if you mind, and we’re talking here about the “I mind” mind, which is famous for raising objections and seeing the worst in everything. It’s bound to. That’s its function. In truth, of course, “it matters” means the opposite – “let it go, it merely matters – there’s nothing to it – come back to Mind.”

Yes – so instead of being in grumpy, frumpy “I mind” mind, come back to Mind with the capital M, the true mind – the only one that holds all the rainbow frequencies of creation.

I’ll change my hat now – no more the lecturer, the know it all, the preacher, once again little I be Merry. What a name – I hear you say. Isn’t it just... I’ve tried changing it but nothing else works. Still, it looks pretty cool in its holographic 7D telepathic thought form.

So, yes, no more digressions unless they’re absolutely necessary, speaking of which, have any of you noticed how the 3D reality grid seems to be coming apart at the seams in the last few weeks. No? You’ve not noticed the picture getting blurred or flickering, or things dancing around before your eyes? Well, have no fear, g-nome portal has a replacement ready for immediate use the moment the existing system collapses – in a day or two – can’t be more specific. Sorry. Inter-dimensional non-specificity can be a bore just as much as “national security” in your reality.

So, to answer almost none of the many, many questions Caratacus Gomwick received... all in good time – please don’t kill the question or the desire to know. Think of yourselves as micro organisms – as fermentation bacteria which are helping grape juice turn into fine wine. Your very desire to know, to clarify, to elucidate is what is driving the fermentation process. The answer is never external – always comes from within just as soon as you take a deep breath and quit insisting it has to come from me, of all people. Trust g-nome – as soon as you reconnect yourself nothing, and I mean “no thing” can come between you and whatever you need to know. All knowledge, all information, all data, all awareness is forthcoming, just as soon as you give yourself permission to receive it from the horse’s mouth as opposed to mine... and, speaking of horses,  if you think the term “night mare” means bad dream, I would ask you to think again. Why blame the dream – why not take a look at the dreamer. If I’m full of fear, rejecting what is fundamentally true, in denial of glorious Faery, caught up in the glamour of 3D reality, then I’m bound to see the deep powerful message from the “bowels of being” as something disturbing, terrifying even.

But all that is changing – has already changed. G-nome portal is once more active. Faery has spread its wings over the flickering hologram of Earth’s 3D reality, and we, dear g-nomers, are embarking on the ride of our life.

So let us wish ourselves bon voyage and gaily return to Josh and Gill who are...

0=1 (not chapter 3)

You’re probably not familiar with the 0=1 chapter, though it’s always been a well-regarded tradition on the g-nome portal.

Here at g-nome we have a healthy disrespect for all forms of linear progression – numbers included – and make a point of reverting to non-linearity whenever or wherever the need arises. 0=1 is the code sign for this.

Well, two chapters into the by now well-known tale of Josh the Jubilant, told in a slightly adapted form to fit the morals of this new age, and the readers are clamouring for insights and clues. Hardly surprising when you consider that the g-nome portal has been concealed from public scrutiny now for several thousand years, but there was a time in the not so distant past when it was as well known as your Facebook or Twitter are today.

Funny the way things go round in circles, is it not?

So here we are, at the dawning of a great age – an age of awakening consciousness, of newly rediscovered, wonderful abilities – of telepathy, of telekinesis, of teleportation and anything else you might like with tele- in it. And what does it all mean?

Dear searchers, mystics and naturally inquisitive readers – it means that the walls of separation that have kept us locked in a 3D reality of mostly grim subsistence are tumbling down. Remember the Berlin Wall – and how unexpected it was when it finally fell? The same is now happening at the level of consciousness. Naturally, g-nome portal emerges from the spider web of history and concealment, brushes itself down, recalibrates its instruments, and hey presto, announces to the world that it’s once more open for business.

At first a trickle of curious visitors, then a crowd, then a throng, and cyber-space is bursting at the seams to accommodate the many who seek to reconnect with their forgotten heritage – the g-nome portal that is the gateway to so much of what you are now in the process of rediscovering.

I don’t say the only gateway – that would be presumptuous, but a significant, meaningful, merry and joyful gateway nonetheless.

We are assisted, as you all know, by the gnomiki. Please take the trouble to read the instructions on correct pronunciation. It may seem like a trivial detail, a mere formality, but our inter-dimensional friends and assistants do expect us to make the effort to use their names correctly – starting with “gnomiki” itself. It’s a spirited g – that’s not afraid to make itself heard. Remember, laziness in pronunciation indicates – well – you get the message – just consider how you’d feel if a letter of your name was deliberately ignored – the letter that refers to your dignity, your virtue, your joie de vivre and spontaneity. I understand that the English language has a similar word – referring to “gnomes” or “garden gnomes”, but I assure you that they are quite unrelated, so let there be no confusion.

Dear friends of g-nome portal if I may call you that – welcome, welcome, welcome. You are living in dark and dangerous times, but the dawn is already lining up its champagne bottles and streamers after a long, long dark night of the collective soul on our beloved Earth. So may g-nome portal serve as a reminder that you are truly destined to awaken before you can say “hopscotch” – obviously hopscotch here refers to the technique of inter-dimensional... apologies, I digress.

Classes will be starting shortly. Please sign up any of you who are ready to come twice a week, not less, for the two hour evening session on inter-dimensional doing. I don’t like the name – “inter-dimensional doing” but until we’ve got the telepathy programme up and running, starting later in the year, we have to make do with rather crude translations of the matching thought form.

Many of you will find yourselves remembering your lost arts and abilities regardless of whether you choose to avail yourselves of the services of g-nome portal – and that is as it should be. None of you have truly forgotten anything. All of you are g-nomers just as soon as you feel the beautiful quantum vortex of light stirring within you once again. Welcome back to the multiverse of inter-dimensional being.

Cuckoo la la and tally ho

Chapter 2 – in which I converse with a beetle named Gill

You might say that anyone foolish enough to start a conversation with a beetle deserves whatever comes to them. There are many people who categorically refuse to converse with any creature or species, for that matter, other than humans precisely in order to avoid the unexpected. They seem to know instinctively there’s the lurking danger of strangeness in any seemingly-innocent mouse, fly or potted plant. Some people take this principle a stage further and try to avoid conversing even with other humans, unless they’ve been thoroughly vetted and approved by society, which means they are unwilling to talk to most people on the planet for fear they may be infected in some way by the “strangeness”.

Well, I didn’t seem to have any such scruples, and rather like Bilbo Baggins setting off on a madcap adventure one fine morning, I surprise myself by unexpectedly addressing the aforementioned beetle that has just appeared from nowhere.

“I don’t mean to be over-inquisitive,” I begin, “or impolite, but would it be too much to inquire whether you just popped out of my forehead?” I ask the greeny-blue beetle that is now perched on a chair a metre from where I am sitting.

Naturally, I’m not expecting the beetle to answer. I live in the same world as you and beetles do not, except in children’s tales, converse with humans. Then why, you may ask, do I strike up a conversation in the first place? Good question... just on a whim, I guess, or from a mildly confused sense of exasperation that something as irrational as insect teleportation seems to be happening with my, albeit innocent, participation. In any case, the last thing I was expecting was for a beetle to answer my largely hypothetical question.

“By all means feel free to inquire,” the beetle replies with courtesy. “We have, after all, been taking something of a liberty ever since Roger opened up Faery, but these things can’t be helped...  Still, you must have given your consent, or he’d not have been able to do so.”

Let me just start with some punctuation marks to indicate what I’m feeling at this moment: !!!???***$%^&*()_+}{@:LL?>><!”£$#§

I’ve changed the colour for emphasis and though I’m not entirely sure I’ve used the correct symbols or the correct order, you probably understand more or less what I’m trying to convey, and at this moment you’re probably firmly alongside those who would never knowingly talk to any other life-form, with a slightly sanctimonious “I told you so” echoing through the corridors of your rational mind, but what can I do? I’ve unleashed the genie from the proverbial bottle, or “lamp” as purists would have it, and now there’s no going back, so without the blessing of hindsight I have no option but to proceed.

The first problem is not so much what to say as how to speak. The beetle’s short opening statement has raised so many questions that my mind is immediately gridlocked. “Who is Roger?”...”What is this so-called “Faery” he’s opened up?”...”How have I given my consent?... and to what?”... not to mention “how on earth am I able to hear a beetle talking?” These questions frantically vie for the single microphone on the speaker’s podium of my mind and so, somewhat embarrassingly, I find myself doing an improbably lifelike impression of the gold medallist at last year’s “Wondering why the shining sky” Gaping-goldfish Eisteddfod, while the greeny-blue beetle patiently looks on.

“I understand...” it interrupts my agony. “It’s not unusual to be somewhat overwhelmed by your first direct trans-dimensional communication, so allow me to answer your questions, all of which were conveyed instantaneously to me through our high speed data link.”

Helpful though this offer undoubtedly is, it seems to further exacerbate my uncontrollable facial spasms, now indicative of a goldfish choking on a mouldy shoe.
“Assistance, Roger,” I hear the beetle’s message, and the same moment I feel a soothing sensation spreading through my forehead from the beetle mark that apparently Roger had given me.

“That’s better,” it continues. “You’re a touch over-excited but that’s easy enough to deal with. Roger just applied a little alpha to your electroencephalogram which has a calming effect. Hope you don’t mind. It’ll be easier for you to follow the conversation.”

I nod serenely, not really knowing what this “alpha” refers to, but definitely enjoying the calm-peacefulness I am now experiencing.

“So, first things first,” the beetle continues. “My name’s Gill, as opposed to “greeny-blue beetle” that you’ve been calling me. This will make it easier for you to write up your report when you get round to doing so,” says Gill with what seems to be the hint of a smile.

Chapter 1 – in which I encounter a beetle

I’m sitting in my room minding my own business when a beetle flies in through the open window. I pay it little or no attention and carry on working, but the beetle is having none of this. It starts throwing itself against the window making such a racket that I am compelled to offer it my assistance. I try opening the window wider and shooing it outside. The beetle sits on the window sill and glowers at me.

“I don’t know what you’re so angry about,” I tell it, “I never asked you to come in here.”

Perhaps this isn’t the correct way to address a beetle and, apparently incensed, it flies up into the air, circles twice around the room picking up speed as it goes and then smack into the centre of my forehead. Imagine my surprise! Stunned, I am almost knocked over backwards. Once I’ve recovered I look around but can find no trace of the beetle. Naturally, I assume it has exited through the open window, but as time passes I become more and more certain that the beetle has chosen another route and has, in fact, exited through me.

This isn’t a particular pleasing thought so I keep trying to ignore it, preferring to rely on a more prosaic explanation, but as the shining beetle mark on my forehead starts to fade I have more and more evidence that the beetle indeed used me to exit the room, as other insects start doing the same thing. The list is quite extensive: three flies, a spider, one ladybird, two more beetles, a butterfly, a moth, a bee, a wasp, several mosquitoes, a couple of crickets and even a glow worm seem to pass one way or the other through the mysterious portal the beetle opened up in my forehead. Each time there is a kind of cracking sound, like a spark leaping, and immediately afterwards the beetle mark on my forehead is prominent for several minutes.

I can’t say I strongly object to being used by insects as a transport hub but I feel a little cheated, as if I’m missing out on some of the fun, so after the latest teleportation in which a beautiful greeny-blue beetle emerges from nowhere into my room I decide to break silence and express my feelings on the subject. I wonder if I’d have done so had I known where it would lead?