The 3lack 3ox.

I brought the fairy lights. Slender copper wire, and tiny, delicate white stars. He laughs, as I drape them gently over his bookcase... And then I'm giving him a card and his money in the card, and talking about how I feel I should offer him a white scarf in return for his teachings.. There is a poem, written in the card. It is the poem that I quote on the first page of my research project: Dust of Snow BY ROBERT FROST. The way a crow Shook down on me The dust of snow From a hemlock tree Has given my heart A change of mood And saved some part Of a day I had rued. He asks me why? -  Why offer a scarf? I say -  "Because that's how you do it, you offer a scarf to the teacher, and the money is in an envelope" I am  purposefully  missing out the obvious, that I'm treating him as a lama. We are talking about crows, I say " I remember being sat, on Glastonbury Tor, watching a crow. And there were onion rings - not the battered rings - crispy, like crisps! And this ...

Paradoxical and confusing. He opens the door to me and right away he begins with,  chit-chat. Years away from this  - and I have many hours' experience of finding people who have arrived to talk with me, lost outside the building; in the rain, the sun, the wind. Some are anxious, some are smiling anticipating telling their story and needing to feel better, many people are confused - all just people, and hopes and fears.  And then into the peace of the therapy room... But I never begin with chit-chat about me. Ever. So what is happening? Of course I enjoy it, he's talking to me about him.  Like I'm being let in, just a tiny, tiny bit. And then he sits down and we are back to my research proposal, hooray! And he is very clear in his mind that a trauma in the present, confirms the trauma of the past.  A reanimation, that occurs not to resolve it - but to confirm it - because it feels normal.  Observing his way of thinking is like watching someone trying to ...

25th June 2021 Notes: I want to get to a place  where we work together to do this mysterious, great something.  A vision - walking the Camino  to Compostela.  A pilgrimage through story. Exploring dark alleyways. Oh my words to you  I'm so bloody obvious.  And I'm breaking rules...  Aligning with truth and trust... I approached therapy with an open mind, and as if it was work. But, it was during the time of Covid lockdown and life took place on Zoom. My family were at home too. I felt restricted and stifled.  I couldn't really talk. And after about eight sessions I was done. No getting out of therapy as a student. We agreed to talk about my course work, specifically in this session, about my research project.  I would have left therapy if not for the course, but I couldn't face starting with another therapist - difficult to dig underneath my rationalizations, but I didn't want to explain even as little as an outline of what had happened to me...

OK, this is hard - I need to dig deep. The pain of it is almost beyond my endurance, and yet at the same time I am above, observing, watching and recording. The pain is like wearing a dress made of nettles. And so I turn towards it, embrace it  and connect. Holding out my hand I ask into the empty air, 'what is your name? ' In the roiling blackness of the void I hear the words  'I am your intoxication'.  Gently I ask the pain, what do you need?  My hand touches something cold and rough, like shark's skin. And below me deep under an ocean of tears and a crimson gush of my heart's-blood, the words 'love and soul ' boil, radiant and poisonous as a nuclear flash. The sun turns blue, a 'vision' of Cherenkov light, 'the blue sun' I'd seen in my semi-psychotic state when I had left the therapy room for the last time. "love and soul..." Returning from inside to out, directing my vision to the keyboard, to the soft white light of th...