Chichester cathedral

I love the doors of Chichester cathedral. They are glass, with the handles in the form of a great cross, symbol of death. Each time the door is opened the cross splits in two: Resurrection. I don’t know if that was the artist’s intent, but it is in the iron, and in me.

The Cathedral is from 1109, with Norman arches all down the nave, and has reliefs of the Raising of Lazarus on its South wall. And it has such iron work throughout, such as this lectern by the Nave altar

and the accompanying pulpit,

and the high candlesticks behind the tapestry for St Richard. This dark metal gives a unity of theme. I love the font, too, the simplicity of that polished metal. The child dipped there is surrounded by light diffracted by the water surface. The cathedral is filled with electric light on its pale stone.

Outside is St Richard- “see thee more clearly, love thee more dearly, follow thee more nearly”. Friends said he looked like Gandalf, or Dumbledore, or Obi-Wan Kenobi. No, they look like him.

And Elizabeth, with Philip.

Here is the Arundel tomb– of a family called Arundel, not in Arundel. See how he has taken off his gauntlet.

I love the tapestry behind the high altar. A man asked if I needed it explained, and I identified the Evangelists symbolised at the bottom. The Greek elements are at the top, and the middle three panels are the Trinity.

Here is a misericord. I like misericords. The choir stalls were roped off until Evensong, so this was the only one I could photograph, and I only saw one other. We went back for Evensong.

I sat in Evensong, deeply uncomfortable. I looked at the leaflet, after- there is so much grovelling! I would count it. Actually, I only found two phrases from Cranmer, “We who for our evil deeds do worthily deserve to be punished”, and, “We worthily lamenting our sins and acknowledging our wretchedness”. There was an open day, recruiting potential new young choristers. The singing was beautiful.

And I was back in childhood, in the Anglican church. After, I was thinking of one of my father’s bonnet bees: we would be dismissed- “Go in peace to love and serve the Lord”, or whatever- and then we would sit down to listen to the organ voluntary. And he said we should not: shriven, we should be about our work. I felt constrained and powerless. I felt I had to conform to a template that was not me.

And now, I am in delight. In Internal Family Systems therapy, Richard Schwartz asks how old the stuck child believes the person is, and the person announces their age, 57 or whatever. After Facing the Monster, saying an age in years seemed meaningless, so I told myself, “I am old enough to go out, get food, bring it home and prepare it. That is, I am old enough to look after myself. So I tried that with a friend, and it did not land. Instead, I said, “You are old enough to speak and be heard”. I made another guess for another friend, meeting the needs of the child in her. Right now, I feel such delight in this! It makes me feel powerful, effective, worthwhile!

St Ives

In Cornwall, we met a man in Hell, a woman who may be in Heaven, and a woman in pain. But first, here is me on Carn Galva.

Clambering over the stones was simple enough, but the paths through the gorse and bracken were hard to see. Ploughing through the undergrowth would be unpleasant. It was Kate’s idea: I was better at the rock-hopping, but she was braver. Near the top, we found tiny, struggling brambles putting forth blackberries, being the best brambles they could be. A day later, the sole came off my boot, in a cafe.

St Ives, sticking out into the Atlantic, has dramatic and changeable weather, and when we arrived with 50mph gusts and heavy rain forecast I worried about the tent blowing down. Actually, it kept us dry, though the poles curved inwards at times. We slept most of the night- the worst that could happen would be our stuff getting wet, and having to sleep in the car.

We walked from Porthmeor beach, to the north-west, where people were learning to surf, round St Ives Head where we watched the waves burst over rocks, round to Porthgwidden and Bamaluz beaches where the sea was calm. We got a Cornish pastie, of course, and followed the path round the rocks towards the harbour. There we met a man with one wife, and he and Kate got chatting.

He’s from the Black Country. NOT Birmingham, Wolverhampton. “City of Wolverhampton,” I said, and looking back at the conversation that was enough to prompt his tale of woe. It’s not a city, he said, not really. It doesn’t have a cathedral, or- That thing where towns are declared cities, it’s silly, really. The University is just the old Poly.

When he was 38, he went to do a civil engineering degree. He got through the first year, but the second was too hard for him, and he crashed out. He learned later that people got through by cribbing each other’s work. He looked about seventy, so that could be thirty years ago, and the resentment is strong. His wife gave no sign of a response, she just seemed locked in. I wonder how many times she has heard that story.

Graduating could have changed his life, and made him much better off, and the resentment staves off huge hurt and sadness, at the cost of still being as sharp today as ever.

We ate on a first floor balcony, looking over the pier. The waiter thought we would want to eat inside, it being evening, but being crowded could only offer seats outside. That was what we wanted. Kate thought the fish the best she had ever tasted. We looked out across the bay as the bright sky faded to black, in warmth and stillness, and it was magical.

Pain: we stopped at a petrol station to eat lunch in the car, and I went into the shop to get coffee, noticing that an old BMW was blocking us in. An old woman had had a funny turn, and the staff were fussing over her, getting her a seat and a coffee- instant from the back, rather than expensive from the machine. After we finished eating, the BMW was still there, and I went back to the shop to find whose it might be. It was the old woman’s. I said as gently as I can, which is very gently, that there was no hurry. She stared at me, looking fearful, I think feeling shame and projecting judgment on me. She hurried slowly out to move her car.

And heaven: in Exeter Cathedral we met a priest who was utterly calm and gentle as we talked and asked questions. So often in fight/flight, to get things done, what BonBad calls sympathetic nervous system activation; or freeze, Dorsal vagal parasympathetic, zonked out, I have glimpses of Ventral Vagal parasympathetic, a sense of safety where I might open in vulnerability to others. It is the state I aspire to. I am mostly safe, if only I could believe it.

Being triggered

How can we talk to each other, when the most neutral expression one side can manage can trigger the other?

Someone says she has “concerns” about trans. That word could make the speaker feel she is being entirely reasonable, but the word triggers me. Arguments flood my mind.

Someone might be concerned about young women having healthy breasts removed, and regretting it afterwards. This is an emotive subject. I have heard cis women’s distress at the thought of chest masculinisation. Breasts are beautiful. Breasts are objectified, and part of the objectification of women. Breasts suckle babies. Breasts give sexual pleasure to the women themselves. Breasts and nipples are sensitive.

So someone might be triggered by the thought of chest masculinisation. In the anti-trans echo chambers, the operation scars are compared to “axe-wounds”: the triggering is orders of magnitude greater as people share their revulsion.

However a study published by the Journal of the American Medical Association, with a sample size of 139 people undergoing surgery between 1990 and 2020, found statistically zero regret.

There are studies cited by both sides, and it is difficult for lay people to form a clear view. The original paper suggesting social pressure caused transition, naming it “rapid onset gender dysphoria,” described ROGD as a “hypothesis” needing further investigation, but it is treated as proven fact.

I’ve heard puberty blockers for trans children compared to the Thalidomide scandal. Thalidomide caused 4000 neonatal deaths and affected 6000 other newborns, yet it was used for four years for morning sickness. In 2019, probably the year when most children were referred for blockers, fewer than 150 children discharged by the gender identity development service had been referred. If my voice had not broken and my figure had developed in puberty in a female way, my life would be a great deal easier. I would be infertile, and I am childless so that might not have made things much worse.

Here, I am getting into detail, and that is part of the problem. The anti-trans campaigners assemble a great deal of detail. It can be answered, but it is impossible for one layperson to have all the answers to hand. So, read what trans people write. Trans is just how we are.

If the thought of trans surgery makes you feel squeamish, work for nonbinary recognition and the acceptance of trans people without surgery. Challenge anyone who talks about “genuine” trans people and means those who have surgery or hormones. Trans is so vilified and ridiculed that there is great social pressure against transition, and we may agonise about the decision to transition for years; but once we decide, we are pressured into hormones and surgery. And some young people are simply themselves, expressing themselves, making their own decisions.

Or, what about “concerns” about sexual predators in women’s loos? That thought can trigger someone. It has been expressed in the most triggering way: “Self ID gives predators the green light”, printed in a newspaper. Since regulations in 2008, trans women have been entitled to use women’s services from the moment we decide to transition, whenever expressing ourselves female. Some trans people are criminals, and some Scots are criminals, and some left-handed people are criminals. I am a left-handed Scot. You would see that campaigning against Scots, or left-handers, because of alleged criminal propensities would be ridiculous, but mention of a trans criminal triggers anti-trans campaigners, and because they are triggered they become more hostile to all trans people. Layla Moran MP refuted the idea of that newspaper slogan in 2018, but the alleged threat continues to trigger people.

So, the mere mention of “concerns” triggers me. I could start ranting. You don’t have concerns, you have objections. If you had concerns, you would consider the issues with an open mind, then support trans rights. That is me expressing my response in the most reasonable terms I can imagine. I hear the word “concerns” and I go into fight or flight mode: my sympathetic nervous system is activated, physiological changes enabling physical action take place, and so sitting still, let alone speaking from the Light, becomes difficult.

If I exclude myself from the discussion to avoid being triggered and triggering others, it is deprived of a great deal of knowledge and personal experience. What am I to do? The longer this goes on, the more triggering it gets for me. Merely thinking about it stresses me and can set me off ranting in my mind.

BRIGHTON SISTERS IS A FUCKING HATE GROUP! This is not hyperbole, it is just expressed in a distressed way. Then my distress becomes the issue, and a problem.

Fight or flight evolved for physical action. It is not constructive in debate. It leads to black and white thinking rather than nuance, as in a physical flight situation I need to act decisively.

I habitually suppress fight-or-flight responses. This is called “Freeze”. But suppression exacerbates the stress. I follow Iain McGilchrist in seeing the left brain as tool-using, and the right brain as managing awareness of the whole surroundings. My left-brain, managing understanding and planning action, imagines gentling my own fight-flight response like a terrified horse or dog. I imagine a cornered dog, a huge horse. My right-brain would perceive everything about that dog, its eyes, its muscles, as I approach it. Suppression does not value or understand the fight-flight response. Gentling, which comes from the True Self, or the Inner Loving Parent, or the Light, loves and values the fear and anger, calming it.

I am working on this. It is difficult. Someone utters the word “concerns”, and I am triggered. I automatically suppress, and my distress may burst out, surprising me. I want to gentle my inner terrified animal into calmness, see the whole situation, see nuance and speak in Love. I pray I will manage it. I pray I will see if others are triggered, especially if they imagine they are being rational, and be gentle.

Bism allah alrahman alrahim. In the name of Allah, the compassionate, the merciful.

Balance and freedom

I am not who I thought I was. I am not what I was taught to respect.

Yesterday I was in my house, reading things which made me feel under threat, and today I went to London. I cycled to the station in sunshine, with the wind behind me.

A week ago K told me a ritual around letting go past decisions which no longer serve. In my cot, I decided to do whatever it took to please my mother, whatever the cost. It was a matter of survival.

I have shared on this, with ACA. I said I do not need to prove this to you. I believe it. I breathe that in. I do not need to justify myself or second-guess myself. I need to see.

The ritual asks if I can value the decision and see its worth for me, whether it now serves me, whether I can let it go.

I am grateful for the decision, which kept me alive. I am grateful for that part of me which enforced it on me. And then it became just normal. I could not even see it. Here is part of how I came to see it. I am so glad I came to see it.

I sat on the crowded train beside a woman, and felt the fear and anguish of my inner critic or controlling parent. I am letting the decision go in my own time. I hugged myself, caressed the bare skin of my arms, and cried quietly. There are times when I can contain the upset part of me, let her cry and scream somewhere safe within, and times when showing her proper respect means giving her access to express feeling through my body in the world. It is healing.

The woman got off the train. I sit beside the roof support, but there are six inches of window. I look through it at fields, trees and houses, hungrily: I need this beauty. I spent too long yesterday with the flat, single-colour planes of internal walls and the glowing screen feeding fear and anger.

At St Pancras I play the prelude. Cecilia is delighted: she is waiting for a train to the airport after doing Europe in 14 days with three other tourists and a guide. It’s been a hoot. She is from Texas. She suggests I visit the US. Two weeks might let me do one or two cities.

I walk along Euston road. It is busy and loud. I move my arms and shoulders to release emotion.

In meeting ministry is on the peace testimony. The peace I am called to make, if I may, is with any women’s rights campaigners who need me out, without abasing myself or denying my needs. Ukraine is not my concern.

I had the idea I need balance. I remain inspired by my teenage niece’s declaring something “yucky”. Such clarity. My habit is to rationalise, explain, justify, make a case. I would rather take others with me, and do not want to adopt a common opinion to hide away and be safe any more. It is not safe. There is perhaps a balance between the clarity and the argument. Or perhaps I only need know what I feel, as long as I can be clear about my perceptions.

In meeting I rock and convulse with the fear of my infant self and the sense-impressions of the day. It is relief, the anguish I feel at laying down a burden.

Then with J to the Tate, to the Isaac Julien exhibition. Here are beautiful films about slavery, and death by AIDS, homophobic assault or drowning. They are intense. The world is intense. I might hide from it less. It is my home.

I like being this person that I am. I am glad to be able to appreciate and express who I am. It is freedom.

Ode

Friends, now hear my supplication
Seeking reconciliation
Let us make our true oblation
Let us salute the coronation
Charles deserves our salutation
If not our thoughtless veneration
He is the head of State and nation
Which sorely needs invigoration

If we raise an altercation
or make enraged expectoration
it won’t procure the Crown’s cessation
or end the plutocrats’ predation
Which will survive our indignation,
condemnation, castigation, execration.
Let us show imagination
Seek peace is the implication.
And so, my heartfelt peroration:
I salute the coronation.

Impressions of Yearly Meeting 2023

Alighting from the carriage in the crowds, I want to get to the ticket barrier as soon as possible. I am irritated by people walking slowly, and overtake if I can. So I get to the barriers a few seconds earlier. I realised I am walking rapidly because I am anxious. I habitually suppress signs of anxiety so I am not consciously aware of it: it only shows through my actions. The next time I was there, I paused to look around me.

This is my place. I belong here.

As I passed the piano, a young man- twenty? As I get older, seeing the precise age of younger people gets more difficult- played the first three chords of the Rachmaninov C# minor prelude, and I stopped to listen. Unfortunately the first three chords were all he could manage. He suggested I play something, and I played the Chopin C minor prelude. This got me to start playing the Rachmaninov again. I would like to play it without the score, as I used to.

I dropped off my case at my Friend’s house, and went to the National Gallery to see Les Parapluies, by Renoir. I got a stool and sat before it, considering the relationship between the two girls, and their- mother, I think, rather than nanny. The woman on the left is a milliner’s assistant, with a hat box, says the caption. I started talking with a woman who had also come to see Les Parapluies, she told me. We considered the young man looking over the milliner’s shoulder.

Art opens me up. I am more in the moment, more aware of feelings and bodily sensations, and my surroundings. I am in the place I am, rather than trying to get somewhere else.

To Friends House. The assistant clerks welcome and hug me, and we talk a little. In the café I see my Friend, who shows some sign of anxiety. I describe Les Parapluies, and he looks it up on his phone. Oh, yes, the man’s definitely coming on to her, pursuing her. She shows some distress.

More Friends, more loving conversation, then in to the Large Meeting House, or the Light. This is my place. I belong here. I feel completely at home. I hear the long, careful minute-taking of the nominations. I am in worship.

Next morning, walking through the long pedestrian tunnels of the Victoria Line, I check. Yes, I am probably anxious. I repeat to myself as I walk: This is my place. I am safe here. This is my place.

People here tell me they love what I write- my articles in The Friend, my essay in the Friends Quarterly. One has read it three times! I am delighted. I chat to more accomplished writers. I do not have, yet, something to say that is worth the 20,000 words of a Quaker Quick. I hope to. One stands on Saturday afternoon and talks of the Society’s declining membership. I note how here I am considerably younger than the average, though there are beautiful, vital Friends in their twenties and thirties here too.

I could not remember, on Monday, what we had discerned on Saturday. Oh, yes, considering the structure of central committees QPSW and Quaker Life. I do not have any position on this, but as we upheld the clerks writing the minute, I loved the sense of worship. I felt there was a sense of sadness there too, though I may be projecting: over dinner my retired lawyer Friend thought that ridiculous.

As I understand it, Meeting for Sufferings discerned that Vibrancy workers, now called Local Development Workers, should be appointed for the whole YM, and referred that to trustees. The triennium ended, and a new MfS was appointed. Trustees reported on the local development workers, and some of MfS were affronted. Why were they not making this decision? To me, it seemed some still felt trauma from this. As a former lawyer, I had the idea that MfS should make the decisions as led, and trustees should implement them- which would mean making a myriad decisions, and still provide potential for friction. You cannot make a clear rule which will ensure nobody will feel such trauma ever again. We can only do our best in love. But it is very tempting to try to draft such a protective rule, rather than accept our unknowing. Rules can protect us to an extent. Faith, trust and Love are better protection.

I may be mistaken, but it seemed to me at one point the clerk was comparing herself, unfavourably, to a Perfect Clerk who exists only in her imagination.

In meeting for worship for business, there is the great joy of coming together over Equal Marriage, but we cannot avoid perplexity and disagreement. I found parts of the discernment distressing and I love the final minute on this. I do not like the epistle. It is too confident for my liking. I made a Friend laugh when I said, “If you did not know what the phrase ‘Metropolitan Elite’ meant-“ I don’t think it captures all that was there.

The epistle says we can provide leadership. I would prefer “walk alongside”- we have a lack of hierarchy among us, which could be our gift to the world. We will attract people who love what we say and do.

On Monday morning I thought, if “This is my place”, then all of me, all my beauty and sensitivity, belongs here.

I am safe here.
That means my whole sensitivity and love is safe here,
because I am nothing without my love and sensitivity.
I am safe enough.

I picked up my case, and left the building, without pausing to talk to anyone. On the wall in the garden is a beautiful enigma, eating her sandwich. She is perhaps the most intelligent person I have met, of strong will, capable of determined action where no-one else yet sees the point of it, and wonderfully contained. I joined her. Having been a clerk, she sees the meeting as a clerk would, and might go to talk to the clerk. She asked, has the yearly meeting been good for me? Oh, yes. Utterly, utterly wonderful.

Hope for the new year

I want to be safe.

Yesterday, I responded to a request for words of conciliation with anti-trans campaigners. I wrote that for reconciliation they have to accept that I exist, and my needs are real. It might seem rational to say a man cannot become a woman, but it ignores how people are. In the same way it might seem rational to say gay love is objectively disordered, sterile, based on incompatibility, but some people are gay. The anti-trans campaigners must accept my nature and my needs.

So I wrote that, in a few elegant paragraphs, taking about fifteen minutes. Then I spent ninety minutes ruminating on it, reviewing certain facts and details showing how I was right, and verbal formulations which should absolutely persuade anyone who had an open mind. This rumination got me nowhere. I learned nothing. I achieved nothing. I just got wound up and bothered.

There is the thing I can do- in this case, an email to a particular group of people, which may or may not persuade them, may or may not influence what they eventually write. Or, when Labour goes canvassing I can go with them. It has the chance of producing a good result. And there is the thing I can not do: I cannot influence Kemi Badenoch, Suella Braverman, Alister Jack or The Times in their campaign to vilify trans people. The rumination is my excited, desperate assertion that I know The Truth, and that God or society or whatever should just accept The Truth. It does not work. I am like an infant pleading with a kindergarten teacher, but there is no teacher.

I cannot make myself safer than I am. Jesus said, For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it (Mt 16:25). The words “for my sake” are an interpolation: the phrase is more satisfyingly parallel without them, and makes more sense. I lose my life: I stop attempting to create safety by impossible means, and so gain it, gain the ability to go out into the world without worrying what bad things could happen, or that there are people who are anti-trans.

I have in me a confused and hurting child, traumatised by parental rejection, which seeks safety in such old habits as rumination. It is called the “Critical parent” because when I am conscious of it, it speaks to me like an angry parent. “You can’t say that.” “How could you be so stupid?” But it is the burden of emotions I could not process as a child, so which stay with me. It is my rage and terror.

The conscious ego, which I call the adjusted child, attempts to propitiate the critical parent, but never can.

That hurting child is a burden of shame, hurt, fear and anger from my childhood and previous generations. It blinds me to the world and to myself. I will let it go. I will become one whole integrated human being, accepting myself and the world, all my feelings and needs, and the reality surrounding me, including all other people.

I associate with groups of people who, however imperfectly, know the light within them and seek to manifest it.

It is a process of cleansing long ingrained dirt, of loosening cramped, constrained muscle, of eyes adjusting to bright light, of letting go false understandings. I may never fully complete it. But oh, I begin to dance, and it is beautiful.

I am never safe from fear, anger, sadness and hurt, but now old hurts and fears control and constrain me. I will let them go. This is a process which takes time. I will process those old hurts.

Unfortunately present matters echo the past, reinforcing it. New fears may make the old fears seem more real. I hope more clearly to discern what is real, and what is merely an echo.

In this process of healing, the present may be a symbol of the past. M is a real human being, on a similar spiritual healing to me, highly attractive and gifted, and also a symbol in my head of my abandonment by my mother and desire for co-dependency. I will chew that cud until I no longer need to. I wronged the real person, and should not approach her, but the symbol will live with me until I have processed it. This is a healing. It takes time.

I will find freedom to express all the hurts and fears I have kept inside and to free myself from the shame and blame that are carryovers from the past. I will become an adult who is imprisoned no longer by childhood reactions. I will recover the true self within me, learning to accept and love myself. This is a quote.

I associate with groups of people who, however imperfectly, know the light within them and seek to manifest it: Quakers, ACA, the Lovely Gathering, others.

I will bring myself to wholeness. This is all that matters to me now. It is my struggle to pupate, to bring myself to new birth.

Increasingly, I dance.

The Crime of Father Amaro

Father Amaro is a sex abuser. Paula Rego painted an avenging angel. Here is my version:

Where would I find a sword for this version, but the Bifrost Guard at the Lakes? They will train there weekly from now on. Here is the armourer and compère.

He explained the different arrows to me. Why does it have a pyramidal rather than cone point? I worked that one out: to cut through chain mail. A cone would apply force to the ring evenly, a pyramid applies force to four points around the ring. He also had an arrrow with a cage for a cotton wad: a fire arrow.

Why does the sword have a hollow running down the centre of the blade? To make it lighter. I got that one too- he said it’s nothing to do with a channel for blood to flow or to make it easier to pull out of a wound. The hunting arrow has two barbs- as the beast runs away, the arrow catches on trees or undergrowth, and tears the flesh further.

Then they did their fighting demonstration, with much shouting. The photos do not show their movement: they look as if they are standing round. The movement was quite fun, but they were taking great care not to hurt one another. To get feeling into a shot, I would want to take it from below, as if about to get killed.

Pride is a protest

Pride in London is today, but 1 July was the 50th anniversary of the first Pride march here, and some of us who thought the official Pride unduly corporate, wanted to mark the anniversary, or just wanted a good time, marched then, led by the Gay Liberation Front and people who were there the first time.

Away with the Quakers

She leaned closer, and I noticed her eyes flicking from side to side, looking into mine. She put her arm along the back of my chair, and lightly touched the skin above my scooped neckline. Inhibited, I froze, rather than relaxing against her side, my head on her shoulder. Still, I am delighted with the flirting.

A yoga teacher asked if I would like her to correct my posture, and told me to feel the bones in my bottom on which my weight should go. My spine should curve above those bones, balanced, so there is no strain. I should pull my shoulders back and my shoulder blades inwards. Then I should pull my head back while keeping my gaze level, so that the skull balances on top of the spine. Bowing it forward, we overdevelop the trapezius muscle. Similarly, standing I should have my weight on my heels then bear it equally between heels and the balls of the feet. I have been practising this, queueing for the tills in Aldi. Pull the belly in slightly and the chest up.

I have been away with the Quakers, and seen that we are going to disappear in Britain and probably deserve to, but that our gift could liberate the world. A Friend said that it is so nice to dress simply, and be with others whose values make them dress the same way. This didn’t just irritate me because I was in a different pretty dress, and make-up, and while most women there wore trousers a few were in skirts. It’s that it produces far too narrow an understanding of who Quakers might be, and what openness to the Spirit might produce in a person. It does not make us all look alike. The spiritual discipline is living with people who are different.

We had an animator in to help with the children, and she spent some time with adults too. So I used a free app to help make a film. She provided an iPad suspended over a backing sheet, the idea, and letters cut from coloured paper, and I made the letters of the word “community” move onto the backing sheet and dance round a bit, for ten seconds at twelve frames a second. Then I had my own idea, and pulled fragments off a pine cone, which, when the film was reversed, marched towards the pine cone and reconstituted it. I heard she commented to someone about how seriously I had taken the exercise. Well, I do. When I commit to something I give it my all. People liked watching the letters dance and spin.

I played ball with a little girl, who was just learning to catch one, in the sunshine. The bits I find most memorable in the weekend, two days later, were about play. Saturday evening, we entertained ourselves. I read my sonnets, and a man asked for copies. Did I do dramatic readings elsewhere?

I cycled 28 miles there with Google maps. I should have looked at the route beforehand. I kept making mistakes, as the phone perceived me as a few feet off to the side of the path. When I returned, it was almost all off road through woods, but going I went on some nasty road. At the end, the app sent me through a research station, which had a gate blocking the way.

A man told me I could not get through, and told me I had to go back round several miles to get on the road. I just stared stupidly at him. Eventually he told me he knew the combination, and drove ahead of me to let me through. I was tired. So anticipating going back, I was worried.

On Sunday morning, in free discussion, I addressed the group: we sit in a circle, we speak when moved, we do what we are called to. That’s it. Anything more comes from the evil one. Then in worship I wanted to say anything to reassure and encourage these people, but I had already spoken. But, this is what I want to say to Quakers:

Speak when moved. Don’t speak when not moved.
Act when led. Don’t act when not led.

We sit in silence for an hour a week, and talk incessantly the rest of the time. Much of that talk is mere intellectualising. I believe we act for other motivations than being led: we want to appear good to ourselves, or it seems like a good idea. Only in leadings is there life. And, we are good enough already, filled with the love of God. If we act from the Love in us, it is enough.

When the yoga teacher told me to bring my chest out, saying I am filled with feeling, I started to wail. The pain and uncertainty is too much for me. A lovely woman came over to console me. All morning, I had managed to hold my pain and sadness without particularly expressing it.

As a complete contrast to John William Godward, here is Walter Sickert.