Worlds Within Worlds

When I was a small boy, I had 2 large maps which I used to lay out on the floor. One was of the world and the other was of the UK. I used to put books on the corners to stop the maps from curling up from where they had been rolled up and stowed away beforehand. I used to feel like a giant looking down at both maps. The world map seemed so vast. Each country a miniature representation. I would look at capital cities and know that within that dot were millions of people in real-life, out there someplace, milling about and doing their thing.

The UK map showed just the geographical area in which I lived and yet the scope was still hard to get my head around. The idea that within each place name were people, places, houses, cars, families, lives. I was trying to visualise a person. Just one person. How they might look on that map but again the scale was too large for me to do that. Nowadays with online maps we can zoom in and make out individual people, cars and then zoom out again. That was what I was trying for. I was trying to make sense of the vastness of the world outside of what I knew. Outside of my street, the suburb in which I lived, the wider county and then the country. It was endlessly fascinating to me.

So it was recently, that I found myself in the back garden looking at areas where I could place bird feeders. It was in doing this, I discovered a concrete bird bath. I thought if I could cut the foliage from around it and wash it out, that would make an ideal place for the smaller birds to come and drink as well as wash themselves. I noticed there were a number of leaves in there. I approached to start moving them out from there when suddenly hundreds of tiny little insects began jumping into the air. Their home was the bird bath. When they were jumping they could easily be seen however when they settled back down again, they were invisible. A tiny world within the world of the garden, within the street, within the local area, within a suburb, within a district of a wider town. Worlds within worlds. I left them to it, without further disturbances.

I was that little boy again delighting in the enormity of the world except for a split second I was in insect form looking at the giant of the man who stood there spellbound in that timeless moment. Ever since spending time in hospital last year, I feel an interconnectedness with all things. I have always cared for the natural world and tended to it however there’s a spiritual side to it all now. A feeling of being alive in this moment and so when I am in the presence of other living organisms, whatever the size, I feel a sense of gratitude, awe and wonder that we are all here in this moment, reflecting life back to one another.

I am sitting here now typing this. I have a boy cat stretched out on the floor beside me and a girl cat laying with her head on her catnip toy. Across from me is the Buddleia bush which has grown exponentially since planting it out 2 Summers ago. In front of that is Hypericum and then to my right is a damson tree and to the left a hedge of some sort. Within that will be insects, arachnids, all sorts of creatures and they are all here right now, living out their lives.

Before I was taken into hospital and then into Intensive Care, I was aware of all of this on a knowledge level however subsequent to leaving and returning back to the land of the living, I am now aware of the world around me on a feelings level as well. It’s as if the millions of living creatures, some so tiny you would need a microscope to see them are all collectively in my mind’s eye all of the time.

Everywhere I look is life. The buds are returning to the bushes and trees, the garden looks greener by the day, the sun today has got its hat on, the birds are singing and within the boundary of my home and garden are millions of life forms. Their lives will largely go unnoticed by the many however not by me. Worlds within worlds within worlds.

A New Direction

Today marks a new chapter in my life for this blog and a new direction.

I have changed the domain name to The Tuxedo Cat in honour of my beautiful little friend whom I shared some Earth time with and who changed my life forever. She is pictured below.


Her son is laying here right now as I type this. He’s his own person however I can’t deny, she lives on in him and for that, I am very grateful. This is him below, pictured next to his Mum.


And that takes me to the cat I re-homed because I was so smitten with the delightful little Tuxedo cat and her beautiful jet black son. She is pictured below and is also a Tuxedo Cat.


So, welcome to The Tuxedo Cat. Our home on the internet.

I’ve Lost My Mojo

My mojo sure ain’t working.

This has been a bad year for me on many levels and a good one in some ways. I discovered how much of a survivor I am and how even when I have been up against it, I haven’t backed down against the howling mob of consensus reality. I have stood my ground and lost pretty much everything in the process.

I have had one spiritual awakening/download after another. I had another gigantic one a couple of days ago. An incredible one, filled with realisations and what I can only term ‘mind explosions’ as I came to realise and understand ‘God’ and the nature of reality, for me that is. It all made perfect sense as my mind and body become the unwitting cipher for these revelations.

And so here I am. No means to share these with others as they’re all so personal and tailored to my own experiences and no means to word them adequately anyhow to get across what I felt as they are in many ways ephemeral. So I am left with an inner knowing. Wisdom if you like, yet an emptiness alongside that. It’s the only word for it. A hollow feeling. A sense that I have been cleared out of all this inner detritus and although I am once more engaged with the world, everything looks and feels different to me now.

I have no need to delve anymore in deep matters. I’m just coasting along on the surface, like a piece of driftwood turning on the tide. That’s not to say I am now shallow or uncaring, just that I am tending to go with the flow and not seeking to control myself or the environment I happen to be in.

The world seems new to me, even things I have seen and known for what seems like a hundred lifetimes. I appear to be viewing the familiar, the mundane with new eyes. I am birdwatching, finding out about the plants, flowers and trees around me as well as noticing ones that I have passed every day yet seemingly never noticed before. It is an awakening. I don’t know where it will take me and I no longer need to. I want to touch leaves and blossoms and petals and as I do so I feel an interconnectedness with all things.

I haven’t spoken to anyone since I last checked in with you all. I haven’t looked at emails or text messages. I have just been floating really, a dandelion seed being carried on the gentlest of breezes. I think I am going to be away for a good while yet. Taking stock. I hope you are well. I am thinking of you all and wishing you are each blessed in every possible way you can be every single day.

I have a lot to be thankful for on a spiritual level and also personally as I have learned what it is to stand up for things I believe in even if it means losing massively along the way. I guess that’s what I meant by titling this I’ve Lost My Mojo. Mojo being a quality which attracts people to me and renders me successful in other people’s eyes.

I am happy to lose my mojo in this instance because what others think is no longer relevant to me nor does it imbue my life with any such meaning. I guess I have gone through a sort of inversion process whereby the qualities I always felt were important really aren’t and the things I took for granted are what really matter.

I’ve lost my mojo however I’ve regained my purpose. The Divine Spark.

A Friend Dropped By

I had a nice surprise the other day. A friend dropped by to say hello. A young dunnock.

She stayed with me for a good while, gripping my fingers like a branch and then sitting in my hand for a short time (see below) before flying off into a hedge.

My fine feathered friend.

A couple of days later, I was outside and she made herself known to me. She flew all around me, then sat across from me in a branch and looking directly at me, sang her beautiful little song. She had remembered me.

This is a sound file of Dunnocks singing.

Evening Birdsong

I came out into the garden this evening and was met with the extraordinary sound of birdsong. The sounds were so varied and some I had never heard before. I usually record in 1 minute increments because my laptop takes forever to upload anything. I stopped the recording at just over the minute mark and went to record some more only to discover the sounds had stopped for the evening, so the last sound that can be heard is the last sound of the birds for the night. Anyway, I wanted to share them with you.

Direction

I am trying to find the direction for this blog. As of yet, it is drifting rudderless and maybe it has to until I can ascertain where it needs to be? Maybe that is part of the charm? I don’t know. I just hope you will all stay around while it finds its way.

I am sitting up in bed right now. Well, ‘bed’ might be too strong a word for what I have going here because I am in the kitchen.

The thick mat which usually sits on the carpet in front of the fireplace in the lounge is the base element for the thin but firm mattress which is sitting on top of it, then a thin blanket on top of that and all finished off with pillows and a thick duvet.

My mate, a gorgeous jet black cat is beside me. My other cat is upstairs and I do one night on/one night off with my pal because he attacks my other one. Tonight is the ‘one night on’ with him.

He didn’t come back in until just after 10 p.m. because he knew I was unhappy with what he did earlier – which was to bring to me a living, petrified creature of unknown species (it could have been a small hare, a rat or a mouse). I didn’t see it other than it was in his mouth and before I could ascertain what, he had shot off down the garden and over the fence with me running closely behind. I don’t know the fate of said creature other than it was intermittently screaming in terror.

I have been watching YouTube videos this evening and I stopped a short while back to tell him (not that he can comprehend my words but maybe he would be able to get a sense of them from the feelings I imbued them with?) that he never needed to fear me ever and certainly not based upon what had occurred earlier in the day, that he could have shown up immediately afterwards and I would have let him know I wasn’t happy (by shaking my head and holding off a tad in terms of affection for a very short time) but that he would have also known, in no uncertain terms, that I was glad to see him and that he is loved by me, which he most certainly is.

I stroked his head while I said this and he nuzzled against my hand, purred and we looked at each other adoringly. He is now laying beside me, curled up, his catnip mouse toy entwined in his paws. All is good. I hope he sleeps well and has the sweetest of dreams. I hope that whatever it was I saw him with has a far more pleasant future incarnation and lives its life out free from harm also knowing it is loved, far away from presently dreaming feline predators.

So Many Different Shades Of Green

I don’t know if you have heard of them or not but there are spectacles you can buy which enable people who are colour-blind, to see the world as it really is. They are made by a company called Enchroma.

I have watched many videos on YouTube where a friend or family member gives someone they love these Enchroma glasses and the reactions are beautiful. You can often see them sliding them down and back up again, to see the two worlds they are simultaneously inhabiting – the world as others view it and the world they have lived in up until then.

What struck me though is how many of the people talk about the many different shades of green there are. Not the striking red rose on the balcony beside them or the stunning yellow flowers across from them. No, it’s the different shades of green in the one hedgerow or the trees in their field of vision.

I had never thought about the various shades of green all around me. The next nice day weather-wise, I stood outside and at first all I saw was a big block of green but then as I looked, I noticed the various different shades within that. It blew my mind. Why had I not noticed this before?

Then I heard the birds. Not just one continuous background sound but all the various individual birds within that. Before then, I had simply taken them for granted because they were always there I suppose. I made a cup of tea and came back outside. The world was revealing itself anew to my 40+ year old eyes and ears.

When I have tried to tell others about this, some have openly jeered/mocked me while others have looked at me pityingly. Not one person has taken seriously what I have said, as if it’s of little to no importance and perhaps in the grand scheme of things it maybe doesn’t appear so however I feel that if more of us approached the everyday, and some might say, mundane aspects of life with renewed interest I don’t feel that can ever be a bad thing.

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