Invitation

It's been too many years since i have used this Blog. I think it is time to start anew. To begin I am inviting you to submit to my upcoming :

Jane Austen, an anthology.  Write what your passions are about Jane Austen and/or her books; your favorite characters, the character you like to laugh at, favorite books, movies-like or dislike and why. This includes the offshoot books and movies that are related to Jane Austen i.e. Lost in Austen, Stefanie Barron’s Jane Austen mysteries, Death Comes to Pemberley etc.

Send one item of unpublished prose (essay or personal experience) up to 1500 words; No Fiction or send up to 5 poems, no minimum number of lines, maximum of 50 lines or less, each:

Write THE END at the end of each piece submitted. This will be removed before publishing.

Send as an attachment.  Deadline of  March 31, 2021 midnight. Acceptance letter will be sent by April 15, 2021.

For full guidelines or any questions, send an email to : asbice@aol.com

Happy Writing!

 

 

Cat Reincarnation

Some people believe that animals are part of the reincarnation chain. I wonder as I look at Mz Lizzie curled up on the bed beside my PC. Is she exhausted from the life she led before or is she re-energizing for the next life ahead of her? She is perfectly content to lay there most of the day, just waking up to see what particle of food or drink I’m bringing in to nibble on while I read online. She’ll pounce onto the worktable next to me, sniff my cup, then turn her nose up, content that it isn’t something she will lower herself to taste, then turn around and leap back onto the bed, find a fresh spot and settle in again.

She has awakened me in the middle of the night to communicate something to me. I don’t always understand what she is telling me, but most often I do. This is amazing to me even after going through this for the last eight years. At times, she will also very gently pat me on the shoulder with her paw while I’m deep in concentration writing and lost in a past century. The first time she did that I nearly jumped out of my skin. Writing can be intense.

If life goes as I expect it to go, we should be coming to an end about the same time. So I’ve decided that I’m going to take her with me when I go. Maybe in out next lifetime I can be the cat and she can pamper me.

Rodin & Camille & Reincarnation

Knowing the sculptor Rodin through his art impressed me for many years. I went to the Rodin museum in Philadelphia studying his pieces. I devoured books with his art work. Small reproductions of The Kiss and The Thinker complimented my garden and my bookcase. As an artist, he fascinated me. Then one day I saw the movie Camille Claudel and noted the way their relationship abused and destroyed her. My respect for him and his art dissolved. No, the man and his art cannot be separated.

I sought information, reading various viewpoints about this passionate couple. But I only saw Rodin devouring the talent from Camille, draining her of her natural right, to better his own self. This obsession between them screams ‘why’ to both of them.  Why did they remain in such a personal power struggle? Obviously he gained from it. She couldn’t sever herself from him even knowing that she was dying because of it. 

It makes me wonder if relationships such as these are a result of a former life. It is often said that when we reincarnate, we meet the same people again but in a different kinship. What life could they have possibly led before to create such beautiful work but such a personal disaster in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Kenny's Watch

It was a year later when I held his still-ticking watch in my hand. Still ticking. He was dead, gone for a year and his watch was still ticking. I didn't know whether to lash out in anger or sit down and sob. My precious first born son, my baby, was dead before he reached twenty-five years of age, in a car accident.

His car was demolished, He was dead without a scratch on him I'm told. But his watch was still ticking. It too, didn't have a scratch but the band was broken.

I put his watch away, still ticking, to look at on another day.

Twenty-six years later I read in a book where someone picked up the watch of their loved one who had died an hour ago. She was stunned. In reading this sentence, I broke down and cried as if I had never cried before. That moment was still buried inside me. Deep inside me. I don’t think of him until a reason comes to be that makes me think of him. Yet I read a sentence in a book and break down and cry. Does it ever truly heal? Are we ever reconciled with the tragedies in our lives?

Even understanding about life-after-life, and accepting it gladly, it’s the loss of the physical that lingers and wounds.

Contentment and Life-After-Life

Many times have I wondered how a person could be content when they chose to live in a small world. Some that I’ve known never lived anywhere else that the neighborhood where they grew up. One man I talked with boasted of never having been outside his state. He said he didn’t need to see anywhere else, all he needed was right in his own state. Another man in particular told me proudly that he never left Bordentown, New Jersey except for his stint in the Army during World War II. He was stationed in nearby Fort Dix. He drove a big Cadillac but never outside the tiny area where he found happiness or at least contentment. As far as I know he never married, either. That may have had something to do with his being able to follow his desires and not weave someone else’s into his own.

My youth quietly judged these people to be of less intelligence than me. In my mind they must be. Not to have the urge to see other parts of the world must be indicative of a lesser mind. As time and experience led me on a path to compassion and understanding, I came to realize that their contentment was just of a different nature than mine. If anything, these people I’d talked to already attained their area of satisfaction whereas I was still searching for mine.

Adding to these deductions is my study into life-after-life. I’ve come to believe that people with shortened lives, as in dying young, and those happy with their limited (as I saw it) lives are not deficient at all. They have worked out their karma from a previous life. In the case of shortened lives I firmly believe they were here to bless us with their presence, to give us something needed, even if it is the experience of loss. Love and tenderness comes out of the pain of sorrow, if nurtured.

The Lively Ghosts of Ireland

I recently bought The Lively Ghosts of Ireland by Hans Holzer, published in 1967. My copy was given as a Christmas gift in 1996 to Barbara from Jan & Hal.  It’s inscribed on the free front endpaper. Here it is 2012 and I’m buying one of his earlier books that I somehow missed. But then it was old when it was gifted to Barbara.  I’ve collected some of his books but haven’t read even half of all he’s written.

Holzer is basically the only parapsychologist that I’ve continued to read since I started in the mid 60s after I experienced my first premonition. I was driving a car on Kuser Road near the old clay pits where I learned to swim as a kid. (My mother's friend Kip threw me in the deep water and said "swim.") Suddenly I saw a boy on a bicycle run in front of my car. I just stopped. Seconds later a boy came flying down a path out of the woods and bang! Right into the side of my car. I just sat there stunned. He got up, picked up his bike and took off in a flash. I think he was afraid I would get out of the car and holler at him or maybe tell his parents. But I was frozen in place. I took a deep breath and drove away very slowly.

It was soon after that I became aware of Hans Holzer and began by reading his first book, Ghost Hunter published in 1963. I continue off and on because I like his style. He presents his experiences in a neat, clean way. No dramatics, interesting but not pompous or theatrical. And he takes witnesses and a psychic along with him on his expeditions. He tells of his experience then delves into the history of the place. Who could ask for anything more?

End of the World

As I sat waiting at the Duke Eye Center for my turn for tests, etc. an 87-year-old man came in and sat next to me. His wife, a former nurse was also here for her checkup. He asked each one of us within the area where we were from and where we lived now. He obviously wanted to talk. As soon as someone answered he would have comments, personal ones to make about that place.

A bit later I happened to again sit near him in the ‘waiting for an injection’ area. The man seated on the other side of him was reading a book about angels. I was reading Beautiful Madness by James Dodson about gardening. The oldtimer apparently had not had enough of talking. This time he talked about his brother’s overnight cure of cancer by his own (the 87 year old) handling of crystals. Then he went on to tell us that a wealthy man hired 12 time travelers to find out when the world was going to end and how.

According to him, it will be this December when a meteor comes between the sun and the earth. I wanted to tell him that my card reader said I will be here until I’m at least 85 which will be into 2025. I had a few other comments to make to him but why take away his joy in delivering such news. 

I wondered how long he expected to live without the meteor prediction. Also where was he during the 'big crash of 2000' when the computer predictions were disastrous. Where do these people come from? And why do they gravitate to the seat next to me?