Bravo… to hell with the media grudgefest, lies and click-baiting, racially predatory attack blogs, masquerading as journalism. This video is the quintessence of what royalty represents. Royalty in its purest form is not about ruling; rather, it is about being in service for the higher good for everyone in the realm and beyond.
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Both the Duke of Cambridge and the Duke of Sussex are the most noble complement of their parents. At the heart of their lives was/is service. Diana, Princess of Wales got out there and she humanised royalty, she taught the world this most incredible, sublime lesson: royalty serves you the realm. HRH Prince Charles with his Prince’s Trust has raised more than a 1£B, all in service to the realm.
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Both princes with their wives continue and are a handsome evolution of the service for the higher good to the realm begun by their uneclipsed, charismatic mother and ennobled soulful father. In co-operation with the NHS, their work for the Every Mind Matters mental health campaign is the most poignant example of what their lives are focussed on: service to others. Royalty is not a soap opera to be preyed on by the vultures of the print medium and elsewhere in a vulgarly greedy grab at ad revenue at the expense of creating divisiveness, strife, pain, anger, racism, classism, sexism and even death threats.
In the modern age, indeed, the second Elizabethan Age, it all began with the most remarkable sovereign. The most accomplished sovereign, HM Queen Elizabeth II, for whom expanding that need to give back and to be of service to the realm has seen the Commonwealth expand to 53 countries and territories during her reign. This video proves a handsome complement to the work that three generations of Windsor royals have devoted their lives being focussed on being in service to the realm. Hip hip!
Tonight my home is awash in the music of Jessye Norman… this brings me inordinate comfort at this time. Sweet and truly blissful dreams dear ennobled soul. As I am unable to do little else, owing to being emotionally overwhelmed, I pause here to republish this blog of earlier this year. So very glad that I was able to attend the Glenn Gould Prize Gala this past February.
As I work 7 days a week, I was debating whether or not to attend the Twelfth Glenn Gould Prize Gala at the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts. That morning en route home from some errands, I discovered that someone had jumped from a neighbourhood condo. I got in and realised that there was no more feet-dragging; to hell with being dog-tired. I got on the phone and called up Lucian Mann-Chomedy and said, “My darling, we are going to the Jessye Norman Gala!” As ever, always positive, Lucian chimed in, “Oh my, oh yes, how lovely. Well, I’ll be both honoured and delighted.” Indeed, life is for living!
Merlin and I met Friday, October 1, 1982 in a Hell’s Kitchen Walk-up, the following Monday evening, on his return to Toronto, Merlin called up crying. The man whom he had spent so much of our first evening together speaking of, had died; Glenn Gould had died. For the seven years that we were together, Merlin listened to Glenn Gould’s interpretation of J. S. Bach’s Goldberg Variations at least thrice weekly. Indeed, the first gift I purchased Merlin, was a recently released recording of the Goldberg Variations at Christmas 1982: I think that it is safe to say that that gift sealed the deal, I was a keeper for sure.
As I had waited until the last minute to get seats, I was sat in Ring 4 rather than the usual Ring 3. This, alas, was my view of the stage and of course, the butterflies are from the set for Atom Egoyan’s masterful staging of Mozart’s Cosi Fan Tutte, which the moment I saw the set, I began chuckling to Lucian on recall of Tracy Dahl’s unsurpassed performance as Despina.
As I was too busy trying to throw something together for Instagram, I was heard gasping when it was announced that the head of the Glenn Gould Foundation’s Jury this twelfth prize was none other than the actor, Viggo Mortensen, who then walked out onto stage. He, indeed, who in a few days time will be attending the Governors Ball where he may or may not be holding an Oscar.
Out onto the stage arrived the Twelfth Prize Laureate, Jessye Norman. Truly, it was a shock to the very core to see Madame being ushered out in a wheelchair. Suddenly, I was reminded of the events of earlier which caused me to rush home and purchase two tickets for the event. That aside, there was no greater joy than drinking of her soul’s inspiring beauty.
This beautiful gala was so filled with touchstones for me, none more so than the moment that bass baritone, Ryan Speedo Green was in full song. When he sang, “Aprite un po’ quegli occhi” from Wolfgang A. Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro.
Yes, indeed, this marvellous aria’s orchestration included a harpsichord. Straight away, I was teary-eyed as memories of the truly eccentric and delightful Milan Newcombe readily surfaced; Milan will ever remain a lover like no other.
During the intermission, I ran into two old friends not seen in at least 1.5 decades; we spoke of nothing but our surprise at Ms. Norman’s entrance. Life really does march full speed ahead.
After the intermission, it was the announcement of the Glenn Gould Foundation’s Progidy Prize with the recipient being none other than, Cécile McLorin-Salvant, the most fabulous Jazz singer on the planet. Is this not an evening to remember during Black History Month indeed.
This stunningly unforgettable gala was closed out by the final recitalist being the divinely gifted soprano and Glenn Gould Foundation Prize juror, Sondra Radvanovsky in full song, singing Verdi.
The gala concluded with Ms. Norman returning to the stage and singing a duet with Cécile McLorin-Salvant. This was a moving, emotionally intense evening and my life was greatly enriched for having chosen to attend. The gala was nothing short of magical.
As a tribute to this marvellous evening in the theatre, I will include herein two dreams, which were originally audio-cassette-recorded in the 1990s. Before each deam, one of Glenn Gould, the other Jessye Norman, I will include each individual’s Michael Overleaves.
Gould, Glenn Herbert 25/9/32 – 4/10/82, Toronto
This fragment was a sixth level mature artisan in the repression mode, with a goal of growth, an idealist in the moving part of intellectual centre. He had a Mercury/Saturn body type.
Glenn’s primary chief feature was self-destruction with a secondary of arrogance.
Glenn was third-cast in his cadence and his cadence is fourth in the greater cadence. He is a member of entity four, cadre five, greater cadre 17, pod/node 819.
This fragment has an artisan essence twin who was alive during Glenn’s life but there were no plans to meet. This fragment is still incarnate on the physical plane.
The fragment who was Glenn has a scholar task companion, who was in a previous life, Carl Philip Emmanuel Bach. They were not incarnate at the same time.
However, the fragment who was Glenn was exerting considerable influence on Carl Philip Emmanuel.
These two fragments had many lives together, once as luthiers, three times as court musicians, nine times as brothers of the cloth, twice as brothers in the flesh, as well as completing several important life monads, including student/mentor and master/slave.
In the immediate past life, the fragment who was Glenn had as his three primary needs: security, communion and exchange. Only the first of these was ever even partially satisfied.
So here we had a warrior-cast artisan who had seriously conflicting overleaves and a primary chief feature of self-destruction. He had a goal of growth but a repression mode which would not allow him to flourish.
He had a need for communion, but was sexually ambivalent and socially inept. Undeniably, he had great talent but took no pleasure from performing in public.
This fragment has a great deal of scholar energy that was used in the immediate past life to enable Glenn Herbert to painstakingly examine and interpret the works of Johann Sebastian Bach.
He was very interested in form and structure for all of his adult life. This fragment was, unfortunately, the victim of a severe obsessive-compulsive disorder, also for all of his adult life, which worsened considerably during his third and fourth decades.
This fragment did not, as popular wisdom teaches, retire from public life because of any strong beliefs in the recording industry. Glenn Herbert retired from public life because he could no longer bear to be in crowds, even if he was distanced by a proscenium.
Needless to say, this fragment did not complete work on his fourth internal monad.
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Astral Plane Glenn Gould Recital!
Nothing is more uplifting than finding oneself at a great musical performance on the astral plane. This dream was about being richly inspired and by Glenn Herbert Gould, no less; it was truly marvellous an adventure for the spirit.
The dream occurred, on Tuesday, October 6, 1992, whilst the Moon transited both Aquarius and my ninth house.
I am in France where I leisurely browsed through a store; perhaps, it was somewhere in Paris. It seemed here like at nighttime. Whilst in one corner of the store, I noticed that there were all these big slabs of cheese in packaged containers. There was a woman coordinating the display of the cheeses. Sometimes the cheese was being grated and other times not. There and then, I decided that I was going to buy one slab of the cheese that was packaged in a rectangular box.
The cheese was about an inch thick and about eight inches long. The cardboard box that it was in was white and almost like the size of a box of Cream of Wheat. Surprisingly, the box was rather heavy. Though not unlike cheddar, it was a dark cheese. The smell of this cheese was really hard – quite the bite to it. It had seemingly been opened for too long as parts of it was growing hardened and turning colour. I knew straight off the bat that I wanted to have some to take home with me.
So, off I went to purchase the slab that I liked. Everyone here was, of course, speaking French which I quite so understood and liked. Interestingly, I too was speaking very competently in French. It was obvious that I was not too heavily accented as the others were pleasant-enough with me.
The second dream had me leaving the store; I then found myself hovering in the air. Whilst in flight, I went into a building which had a green – oxidised-copper – roof. It was part of a long set of buildings that had very, very tall stone chimneys. These were chimneys that were not unlike the ones at the Palais du Louvre. As a matter of fact, the building was similar to the Canadian Parliament buildings though it was not those buildings.
This complex was considerably longer. These were a series of complex buildings. Here, I was easily thirty storeys up whilst in flight. I looked down at the complex which at maximum could not have been more than five storeys tall. After having contemplatively observed the complex for awhile, I began very slowly gliding down through the air. I intently studied a procession of persons, way below, who were bailing out of very large buses; they were, as a matter of fact, tour buses.
This was all happening in a courtyard-like area and away from the bustle of the street. I next noticed some men who appeared; they seemed, in their long, flowing white robes, to be priests. They were not Arabic or Muslims in caftans; rather, they were definitely Whites. The buildings here were long on the order of Palais Richelieu in Paris. When I finally alighted, we had to go through this incredible entrance.
This led into a wonderful sandstone building; it was very modern with a neo-classical design. On the order of being imposing, the door to this place was massive. They seemed to be the doors to a temple. To get to the entrance, there were many steps which one had to climb. On entering, off to the right, there was a passage that one could take.
An aisle led along another passage; it seemed illumined by a skylight. The priestly men had all entered before me. They preceded a procession of adherents who had come to partake of some ritual. I had gone to explore, off to the left, because it was the wing of the building that had reminded me of the Palais du Louvre. Going there, I wandered about being fascinated by the place.
Some women were posing for artists in this particular wing. They wore modern garb but were very exceptionally beautiful. What was most intriguing about their look was that it was exactly as they would have appeared on the finished canvases. They were very nubile young women; they had to hold their poses for interminably long periods. Here several kids kept on going through the place; they were seemingly art students.
They were all very North American, middle class with their loud, snobbish bourgeois affectations. Right away, it was obvious that all the muses were still virgins. Theirs was an innocence that could never be affected. They were all teenage girls whose bodies were very voluptuous and full. These were not skinny people at all. There was one point at which one girl was holding different poses. Each girl would be painted by from three-to-five artists, at a time. Thus every pose would be captured from different perspectives.
At one point, they told her to take a break; they then reverted back to an earlier pose. This was so that they could return to that work and put some more work into finishing it up. When she changed the pose, she had also turned some 180 degrees. This particular model, whom I was studying, wore socks with Oriental-looking sandals. Inside her socks she kept little items of hers. Whilst she was making the transition, she simply reached up her foot and pulled up her right leg to reach down into the socks.
Hers was a pair of blue-coloured socks – pale blue. To just above the ankles was the extent to which the socks rose. Looking at her, she took out something from about her ankle which looked like a wafer. Not the least bit self-conscious, she ate it at once; it seemed like a chocolate wafer which she favoured. She seemingly needed it to get an energy boost so that she could stay focussed on the tedious work that she did. After having found it all very interesting, I moved on sufficiently knowledgeable of the goings on here. Walking along a corridor, I ended up going into a room where everyone was very strange.
A guy there was a lot like Galen Shim – my very beautiful, Hong Kong-born, Eurasian friend. He reclined on a bed with his head close to the door. When I came in, I noticed that he was naked. When giving him a massage, I began by oiling his body. It was quite fragrant oil. Rubbing down his body, I began working on his toes and feet. Afterwards, I got up to leave but he very silently began coming with me. So out we went and joined the procession of persons; among them this time were several kids. Mostly, they were teenagers – amongst whom I did not want to be.
Galen or the guy who seemed like him, here the guy was not wearing glasses as before nor would Galen for that matter, and I kept walking through the place. Pretty soon, after we had left the noisy kids, we started hearing the most beautiful music. This was one of the rare times that I found the music of the pipe organ to be beautiful. Within the complex, we happened on this wonderful cathedral inside which were most of the people from the procession. On entering the structure, it seemed more like a concert hall. We soon learnt that the hall was specifically built so that only Johannes Sebastian Bach’s music could be played there.
Never before had I heard classical music sound so beautiful. We stood there transfixed whilst listening together. Who then should I notice way at the front of the hall, at the pipe organ that sat high on the dais-like stage, but Glenn Gould. I could see his right profile as if in close-up. My god, this was rapture and then some. He was playing with such rapt abandon that I steadied myself and whispered more to myself than to Galen, “My god, what an incredible dream to be having…”
There seemed to be a skylight on the side of the high-ceilinged nave. Instead of there being stained glass windows, windows for that matter, there was only intense light raining down through what seemed to be a skylight system. The centre of the halved skylight was a wonderful neoclassical, oxidised, copper-looking, greenish flying buttress. Here the look, though modern, was more in the style of Islamic mosques or even Moorish architecture rather than the classic Gothic signatures.
A series of the most intricate and complex circles intertwined, like some riotous jungle vine, in the cathedral-like, concert hall’s stonework. Breathtakingly beautiful it was. I stood there, just inside the entrance to the hall, on the left of the wide aisle. This was a very wide-bodied structure. As you progressed down the aisle, there were different levels where one could go up and sit. These were either on the right or left. The central aisle was covered by the most beautifully designed red carpet.
This place was considerably wider than Notre Dame Cathedral. Unlike the Parisian Gothic structure, it was not a darkened affair. Here it was very intensely bright out. The light coming in on the right and left side of the flying buttress-like, central girder fell through a slightly frosted glass. The light was an intense – almost aquatic – blue. Interestingly, there were no beams or columns, supporting the unusual central, flying buttress-like beam. For looking at the light, one became slightly languorous. I felt paralysed with pleasure; there before me, down the massive hall, sat Glenn Gould.
He wore the most thick-fabricked garb; it seemed from an earlier age. All the men in the white gowns were up at the front. They were all transfixed – as well they should have been. Though I love Johannes Sebastian Bach, at the time, I had some reservations as I am not especially fond of pipe organs. I suppose that it is because it has always had too many religious associations during my childhood. The persons attending the concert were there simply to recharge their batteries. They seemed, all of them, as if not quite in their bodies for being so transfixed – they were otherwise-engaged.
Eerily, I had a sense that these were all persons who were between lives as is Glenn Gould. They were in a form of processing, a form of deep meditation on the order of sleep, as they prepared for the next incarnation. This fugue was the most complex music imaginable. Indeed, the music seemed designed for those between lives. The fugue was composed for astral plane habitués who, sans bodies, could best endure the music’s intensity. Getting a sense that I really shouldn’t be there, plus the fact that I finally couldn’t get into the pipe organ, I started taking my leave of the place.
Galen, or the person who seemed a lot like him, and I then went out front. There we waited for the specific tour buses to show up and take us away. Whilst I waited with Galen, or the person who seemed a lot like him, I was joined by Pandora. It seemed that most of the people who were here were very young-souled. They seemed to be on a pilgrimage, like visiting the original Gohonzon in Japan or going on the Hajj, at Mecca.
As the pipe organ played, I could hear in the tone of the place a faint whisper from the men in white robes. Their thoughts, it turned out, could be telepathically heard. Even earlier, when I had been hovering in flight high above the complex, I knew that this was more so a political institution rather than not. This was a structure which was just as colossal as the temple at Karnak and considerably older. This place was mind-bogglingly complex and massive. The temple was posited directly in the centre of it all.
Just like La Chapelle in Paris is comparably dwarfed, by its surroundings, so too the massive concert hall-like temple was dwarfed by the complex. This architectural marvel was simply soul-inspiring. Whilst all the buses were waiting, I took to one of the buses with Pandora. I had gotten impatient waiting to be assigned to one. We spoke in French because everyone else here did the same. This was not unlike a Parisian bus – the seats all faced each other. Seated close to the front, we were on the left side of the aisle behind the driver.
As though getting close to Saint-Sulpice Métro, I got up and said goodbye to Pandora. I wanted to get off there then walk back to her rue de Grenelle apartment. Pandora planned to go out then come home later so had asked me to wait for her at her place. Here it seemed as if nighttime coming on to dawn. Speaking guardedly in French, I made sure that I was speaking properly and not just fumbling partout. Really, I rather enjoyed this experience of being together with Pandora.
I was very serene enjoying the very beautiful experience. Galen, or the person who seemed a lot like him, had silently slipped from my side when Pandora came and joined me.
*Of course, it would turn out that the person in question was Louka Duplessis and not Galen. I would meet Louka, who accompanied me in this dream, the day following this dream. Just prior to meeting for the first time, it is not uncommon for me to dream of persons who will prove important in my life experience.
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Norman, Jessye 15.9.45 ✟ 30.9.2019, Georgia
Jessye is a first level old priest in the passion mode, with a goal of rejection – functioning for the most part in the positive pole of discrimination, a spiritualist, in the emotional part of intellectual centre.
She has a Jupiter/Saturn body type.
Jessye’s primary chief feature is arrogance, with a secondary of stubbornness.
This fragment was third-cast in her cadence and her cadence is fifth in the greater cadence. She is a member of entity five, cadre six, greater cadre 33, pod/node 212.
She has a discarnate priest essence twin whom she did know earlier in this life but this fragment died in Vietnam. She has a warrior task companion and they have worked together and continue to do so occasionally.
Her three primary needs are: freedom, expression and power.
The warrior energy gives Jessye tremendous organisational powers and her stubbornness has enabled her to stick in there when the going got very rough many times.
Jessye is a warrior-cast priest who has been a spiritual rebel in this life. This is, by the way, not the first time this fragment has sung professionally. This fragment was a well-known castrato in seventeenth century Italy and performed many times before the crowned heads of Europe.
Jessye has great need to serve her concept of the higher ideal and has done so admirably by combining the folk music of her people with her operatic repertoire.
She performs well, as do most entity five fragments. This fragment has always enjoyed her work. Singing has been an extension of her inner spirituality. It is, in fact, a form of meditation for her.
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Now that’s a Hollywood wife!
These rather lucidly awakened dreams were experienced with an intense sense of wonder and joy, on Monday, July 2, 1990. At the time, the Moon transited both Scorpio and my sixth house.
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This first dream found me in a very busy place. When going south towards the Danforth, it was not unlike being on Broadview Ave. It was at nighttime. I came there and found that there were tons and tons of Black people. Even so, it seemed like Toronto and at Broadview Subway station because there are all these streetcars there. One of the streetcars was improperly parked, as a result, it was going to go and turn around.
Waiting for it to do what it had to do, there was another streetcar out in the street. It was really more like a red-rocket streetcar. It was not like one of the newer ones. Everyone here was Black. There were no Whites or other non-Blacks that I saw. Everybody was in the street which was very jam-packed. They were getting ready to cross, after the streetcar had passed, to go in.
There was now a system, where you paid your fare aboard the streetcar, so that you did not have to enter the front doors of the station on Broadview. When you got aboard the streetcar, it was mandatory that you pay a fare. So it did not matter whether you paid a fare at the proper entrance or not. There were many people queuing up to get aboard a streetcar.
Passing these people who were seated there, I went through the proper entrance. One of them seemed like Gabriella Vartan† and they were talking about me. I came around and began going down the steps, into the nether regions, en route to the trains. There was this little old lady who was taking her time, holding up things, so I pushed her to my right. I made my way down then had to go around taking another flight of stairs; I then kept on going. There were a whole lot of levels to this subway system.
When I got down, there was this little cul-de-sac where there were these Black guys – homeboys – hanging out. However, they were not Black American. I found one of them very attractive and smiled at him. He, however, was very homophobic. He went running upstairs to go call the police on me. The train then came into the subway and it was a very, very large train. It towered very high to the ceiling. It was like an Amtrak train which seemed like a double Decker train. It was mostly silver, however, it turned out not to have been double Decker.
When it stopped, I began running full speed because I did not want the guy to come back and board the same car as me. I ran to the front of the train only to find that one couldn’t board there. Instead, one could only enter this train where the cars joined each other. You could enter the front or backdoors of each car but not the front ones of the first car. It was very sleek, round and Deco like a train from the 1930s. The whole place did have a feel of the ‘30s to it. It was very neo-Gothic like the Chrysler or McGraw-Hill buildings in New York City, or for that matter, even the Empire State Building.
It was reminiscent of very early in the twentieth century which was all about great architecture – of things being large, mammoth and spiralling upwards, too, things getting faster and faster. That sense of adventure about the wonderful world of commerce that one had created. It was that time when people had not yet begun to see, as we now know, the consequences of things being bigger and better and faster and all the effects on nature. I got onto the train heading, again, towards the front. Somehow, I felt relieved because I had lost the guy. I was there and noticed a stout man who was either High-Yellow or, perhaps, even White.
The people here were very strange because they were just rather unusual. Even though they looked White, they seemed more bronzish, actual bronze, than the pinkish tonality of the waking state. This was not a place that I knew. It was very otherworldly here, I soon realised. I did not get a seat and as I stood there I then noticed a woman. She was standing at the very front of the train. The train progressed with unusual speeds, I immediately noticed. When the train had shaken, the stout man had tried to brace himself by putting out his foot that was already out in the aisle.
In the process, he had stomped me and I had had to pull my foot out from under his and pushed his away. He wore business attire, a suit and tie, as though en route to an office job. The woman who was standing up was playing on a wooden flute-like instrument that was less than a foot long. However, the thing about all this was that she had unusually short arms. They were fully functional hands with tiny little fingers that nimbly danced over the valves of the wooden, wind instrument. Her arms were like a Thalidomide-damaged child’s.
Then I noticed too that there were other people on the train, about three or four musicians, practicing as well. I soon realised that everyone on board had some sort of physical deformity. They were just ill-proportioned people with torsos that were too long or arms that were too short. Arms too long or what have you, moreover, this also applied to the legs. The most pronounced cases were always the musicians like the female flautist – two or three of the other musicians were male.
Someone else who was on the train began laughing and, out of nervousness, I joined in. The person was laughing at the woman. She, however, hadn’t paid them any mind. Nobody else was paying people, who were laughing, any mind. They did not see anything wrong with the people who were being laughed at. I then got off the train and was out in this concourse area, where the trains arrived, before I went upstairs. Before I would go upstairs I saw this child seated in the middle of this white blanket that seemed more like diaper material than flannel.
The child wore a salmon-coloured merino. He had little, white, cloth diapers on. The infant had, again, very unusually, unusually short, short legs that made it look almost like a child because it was seated upright on its bottom. However, it had a very big torso – matured, such that the child seemed like a very big, big child for its age. Its head was very large with a very developed large and soulful-looking face. At the time it made me thing of Jake Hudson. Jake does have a very large head and face. I was trying to connect with him. He reached out his short little arms, crying out and said, “Dad, I want to go.”
There was this youngish man, who was blond like the child, and he seemed not unlike the guy Olaf Knight. He picked up his son and used the blanket, on which the child sat, that had these straps and put him around his shoulder. Like an African mother would, carry her child when in the fields, thus he was carried on his father’s back. He walked off with the child, who was holding on to him, except that the child was really an adult male. It was all very strange here in this otherworldly place.
I ended up coming upstairs and going out in the outdoors. There were people here – again, mostly Black people. I was talking to them when I heard the strains of Richard Strauss‘s Four Last Songs beginning. I beamed and excused myself from the people, with whom I was interacting, and went running off up this plaza. It was a clay-tiled plaza and when I got there, I saw the symphony. I went and sat in lotus position and sat very close to the front. There was a gathering of persons in a semicircle and I was, as a matter of fact, the closest to the stage.
The stage was above on a dais and it was edged by old gold juniper. The juniper was really, really nice and quite fragrant, refreshingly so, to the smell. Along came, from around a corner walking, Jessye Norman – the high priestess herself. She had been preceded by her divine voice’s magic. She was, of course, singing Four Last Songs. She wore a beautiful, beautiful, glistening black dress that seemed almost organic with a life of its own. It was twinkling on and off but the lights were lifelike like fireflies.
They were sequins but they seemed, somehow, to be organic. It had hues of gold, silver, bronze, and dark green hues like pine and blue hues like lapis lazuli. It was very, very intensely rich a fabric. She started singing the first song, Frühling, and it was very hauntingly beautiful. She saw me and beamed down at me. It was so connected between us. I was so enthralled and overpowered; I was quite smitten by her. I thought very rapturously awakened,
‘Yes! I’m having a dream of Jessye Norman. So very good to see her again, my god here she is and performing Four Last Songs.’
She then came almost to the lip of the stage and stopped as though about to sneeze. Then she held her breath and started laughing because it was so hysterical. The look on my face was one of being truly horrified for her. This had actually caused her to crack up. Then she began singing again and began making gestures for me to move or be removed. I was stunned and thought this some sort of betrayal.
‘Why is she snubbing me like this?’ I wondered. Then these two huge, burly guys came to eject me out of the area. As I was leaving, I could hear her starting to sing again. I was very, very upset.
I was, in the second dream, in this large house that was a very many-storeyed place. It had many apartments. I came out and it had a very slanted roof that one could go out onto. This roof was, however, very dangerously precipitous. I was looking about and thinking of Carl Leroiderien because, somehow, someone was talking about him. This White man was talking to me and telling me that Carl had been enquiring after me.
He then went on to ask me if I smoked dope which I denied. I can’t think of it doing anything for me except, perhaps, to make me sneeze at the most. Sometimes if mixed with hashish, I then got a massive headache. “It doesn’t do anything for me, I don’t really like it. I don’t see the point to it and I don’t smoke it.”
At the time that he was saying this, we were climbing some very, very steep stairs. Then at that point, after she had given her performance, I encountered Jessye Norman again. She was seated on a bench and called me over. She said hello very warmly and apologised saying, “I hope you weren’t upset. You realise that it was a misunderstanding. I wasn’t laughing at you; it’s just that you don’t seem to realise where you were.
“You were, well there are certain degrees of protocol and you were ahead of the dignitaries. And you shouldn’t have been so close to the stage because one of the reasons why your nose started bleeding was, in this dimension, if you’re this close to the stage… when I’m singing, when I hit certain notes it can shatter your eardrums but also shatter your mind.
“So you see it was very crucial that I get you out of there. Also, I was having a very bad allergic reaction to the plants at the edge of the dais. They made me want to sneeze. It wasn’t at all you or exclusively you.” In having embraced me thus, she was being most healing. I did, in fact, have quite the nosebleed. As I was being hustled out of the place, by the burly guards, it was then that I realised that my nose was bleeding.
At the time, I had thought it strange. As this dream progressed very lucidly and linearly, there was no point at which either burly guard had so much as touched me. I was so upset. It was so very good, after the fact, to have had her explain as she did.
*This dream really does validate the notion that all persons encountered in the dreamtime, without exceptions, are separate entities and not figments of one’s imagination. END.
When I was being bounced by her, I was so stunned, upset and humiliated. Had she not explained as she had just done, I would have awakened from this dream with a totally different perception of events. I had also no way of knowing that she was having an allergic reaction to the juniper which, at the time, I found so wonderfully soothing. What’s more, I hadn’t a clue that I had thrown the Chi of the place by having disrespected protocol.
I would never have thought that my nosebleed was due to her singing. In fact, it is possible that I could have awakened and not recalled that, indeed, I had had a nosebleed which I had totally forgotten until she had mentioned it. Jessye Norman has indeed straddled, with great élan and diplomacy, many a dimension with great frequency and fluency.
I then began holding her hand and told her that there were times that I had dreams of her, in which there were sometimes cetacean-looking creatures that came and did formations around her as she sang hyper-dimensionally. She was just enthralled and pleased. She squeezed my hands and laughed a healthy, really wonderful laugh. She was quite smitten by me and encouraged me to write it all down.
Her eyes here were so very large, soulfully dark and focussed right into me. It gave me a high just to have experienced them. I was wearing, when close to the stage, a satin merino-like shirt. So at the time of being bounced out, I had passingly thought that I had been dressed too scantily for her liking.
In any event, it was quite interesting.
This third dream was truly hysterical. It seemed like on Eglinton Avenue East, between Yonge Street and Mount Pleasant Road. It was at nighttime. There was a lot of goings on. Shirley MacLaine was there, Warren Beatty and Madonna Ciccone, as well. Warren Beatty was the man of the hour and the centre of everybody’s attention. He had a great deal of sexual energy and magnetism. He had been performing for the camera and for everybody around. It felt very staid to me though.
One very interesting thing that happened was that he had been heavily drinking and, whilst laughing, had bent forward. He then began uncontrollably coughing and was holding his chest and faking a massive heart attack. Next thing you knew, we were in a very crowded area and it turned out that he had not been faking the heart attack. He had a very, massive, massive heart attack. He was dead just like that. He was gone within moments. It was just incredible. Shirley MacLaine became utterly hysterical. Her bawling was like from some Greek tragedy.
She went into a trance-like frenzied state and began calling on astral guides and her Pleiadean guides. Pulling out a very impressive clutch of crystals, she threw herself onto him and tried healing him of death. She was placing them all over his body – at the chakras and elsewhere. It was too humourous for words. Meanwhile, as Warren Beatty died, Madonna came rushing up to the scene. It had all been too late and they couldn’t rush him to a hospital. There was no way that he could have been revived.
They had been out in some desert area having a big party; there were no doctors around. There was nothing that they could do; he couldn’t be saved. He was dead… he was gone. Shirley MacLaine started cursing to the gods, saying, “This is so unfair. He hasn’t even been able to make the sequel to Dick Tracy. And right when he’s at the top of his career this is happening?”
“Well you know this will really immortalise him now. Definitely, this is great publicity, right at this point in his career.” someone had dryly said who was not attached to his whole entourage. I had heard this but Shirley MacLaine hadn’t heard it. Madonna came and whatever she thought about I could telepathically hear it. Her immediate response was, ‘Oh shit! This is just going to fuck up my goddamn career. If only I’d gotten a child by him. Shit why did I have to have that abortion of his child. Shit!’
She was thinking fast. She was someone who knew how to manipulate the media. She was really pissed off because it would have meant immediate Hollywood sainthood for her, were she to go on and have Warren Beatty’s only child, after he had tragically died. She was really pissed off because this was media manipulation beyond her wildest schemes, ‘I’ve got to get him out of here. I’ve got to have the best genetic engineers flown in immediately…’
I was stunned when I read her thoughts because, of course, she intended to harvest his seed and impregnate herself and then have a premature love child of Warren Beatty’s. I was stunned by this woman’s phenomenal megalomania. ‘During the autopsy, I’ll have his sperm taken out and I’ll have it copyrighted. It’ll be my possession. I’ll have it engineered so that I’ll have a child… a son. God we can even have twins…’ She, all the while, was cowering over his face… kissing him and doing the wailing widow number, ‘…Can you imagine, Madonna?’
She privately squealed to herself – unaware, of course, that she was broadcasting to someone like me. She was so triumphant at having had that idea because all she knew was that people who so loved Warren Beatty would take to her now. She was insecure as to whether or not she would endure through time. However, with this, she knew that she would automatically become iconic. She would become truly the virgin mother! She would be actually giving birth to some dead man’s child – he of course being, Warren Beatty. It was destiny. After all, she was ‘the’ Madonna.
She had this flash that this was why she had always been so drawn to crucifixes. She was going to capitalise on the whole drama by making sure that it would be a son. Of course, not to be outdone by that old, other Holy Mother with the virgin birth, she would eclipse that Madonna by having twin sons. Again, La Stupenda squealed with delight to herself. I passingly wondered if I were the only one to be privy to her thoughts. Then I realised that from my detachment, as everyone bawled and was truly horrified as though these were Olympians and not mere mortals, that I was the only one.
‘What could be better than having two Warren Beatty lookalikes crawling around the planet and who were his twins? And his only heirs! With today’s genetic engineering it will be a great coup. ‘Think of the press! I’ll be guaranteed perpetual immortality. I’ll be iconised for all history…’ I thought then and there, ‘My god, this woman is monstrous.’
In any event, the funeral was upon us and by some strange quirk of the dreamtime, I was very much so a part of the funeral. I was as though a fly on the wall, as it were, and aren’t you lucky? Why, was I participating? I do not know?
In any event, I was dressed to the nines. I had on a wonderful, lace outfit with a mantilla with my veil covering my face. I was part, somehow, of the funeral party. It turned out that Warren Beatty had had five wives and, at the point at which he died, his fifth wife was a High-Yellow woman. She was part Black, part White, partly Latina. He had had all these wives. They had always been paid and kept to remain silent. They were never brought out in the public or media. It was one of Hollywood’s biggest secrets.
People, obviously, never knew about it. It had never once been spoken about. There was an interesting turn to all of this… I had been going along Eglinton East on the south side. It was as though I was going towards Yonge Street; however, it was not Eglinton Avenue East. Madonna was going to be late because, luckily, it was that time of the month for her. She was off having herself impregnated, by way of a turkey baster, with Warren Beatty’s frozen sperm – the planet’s most expensively rare caviar fertiliser of sorts.
I was attending the funeral with a short woman who was the fifth wife’s mother. She seemed a lot like Sybil Ben-Daniel and wore a brown coat over her dress. I walked with my right arm embracing her as she was on my right. I had burly bodyguards all about me, before, beside and behind me. They were real Mossad-goon-cum-Wrestlemania types. My pants were those flare-legged Giorgio Armanis that allowed me to stride throwing my legs.
There was a lot of train to them and I had such utter style. I had enormous energies about me and great flare. My eyes were bedazzling even though mantilla-veiled. They were what were, of course, fuelling my high spirits. The onlookers were lapping up my entrance; I felt wonderful. We then went into the church and the mother was talking about, “We want the money to go to the Church because the Church is really the staple of society and civilisation. The Church does so much good.”
I just decided to let her babble on and kept my tongue in check. However, I cussed her under my breath saying, “You demented old fool. What Church are you talking about?”
The church had a metallic-silver front and it looked not unlike York Cinemas on Eglinton Avenue East. It was not a very big church on the inside. As we got inside, I turned around and hissed at one of the bodyguards because he had earlier stepped on my train. Of course, we were surrounded then by the paparazzi and the little people. His Bigfoot’s footprint was there on the pant’s train. I reached back and slapped his face real hard, calling him a fucking asshole.
Of course, I knew that it was safe to do it here because everyone here knew, only too well, that side of me. However, I couldn’t wreck my public image doing so outside. As we got closer to the church, I began striding firmer with each step in anticipation of getting his oafish arse. I was really careful not to show that side of me when in public. I started going down the aisle and there at the end was Warren Beatty’s corpse in the open casket. It was a pure black casket that glistened. It was a dark black wood and a really gorgeous casket.
Escorting the mother-in-law, I came all the way down the aisle. I decided that I would go into the first pew on the right. The first pew on the left actually went further down the aisle and did go past the casket. It held men in white flowing robes; they were priest of whatever denomination this was – very cream, ivory-coloured and obviously very Catholic. I went and sat down and immediately behind me was the fifth wife’s family. They were very Hispanic-looking more so than Black. They were very handsome in that family.
I turned around and smiled at one of the men and the energies coming from them weren’t as I had expected – I had thought that they would hate me. I knew Madonna; I was apparently part of her hangers on. Somehow, I had known her through dance. I thought that, for that association, they would hate me. However, they displayed no such hostilities towards me.
Finally, the fifth wife came and was walking very slowly, regally. She carried a globular bouquet consisting of tiny, little white roses that were sprinkled in amongst some baby’s breath. There were one or two little red roses as well. She wore a white, lace outfit. Deliberately dressed as though attending her wedding, she was not though veiled. She came down to the casket and knelt before it, like Jacqueline Kennedy-Onassis at the rotunda, staking her claim on history by her performance.
She sobbed in a controlled breath and then got up and walked around to the right end of the casket. Facing the church, she was now behind it and up on the altar. She was before the pews on the left side of the aisle. She knelt down again and this time began wailing and ululating. She was doing ritual port de bras with her torso and head as well. She kept on holding on to the bouquet.
It was a very Latin; a very emotional display; definitely, not Jacqueline Kennedy-Onassis. It was very soulful and moving. One really felt for her. Finally, Madonna made her entrance and began slowly progressing down the aisle. There was utter silence in the place because everybody was thinking, ‘Oh dear, poor Madonna was slutting with Warren Beatty at the point of his death. Here is the fifth wife and is she going to create a scene or not?’
Well, of course, she is. The fifth wife is Latin so, of course, there will be theatre. When the fifth wife had been crossing the casket, I took in her body which was very wide-beamed. I knew then, in a flash, that she was pregnant with Warren Beatty’s child and four months pregnant. It was clearly no Immaculate Conception as per Madonna’s little trick. She was a very big-boned woman. She got up when Madonna entered the church and stopped crying.
Madonna saw her and avoided her glance as I turned and watched this fascinating bit of theatre unfold. Everyone was really excited at the potential fireworks about to go off. She started coming down to confront Madonna. I immediately and intuitively knew that there was a gun inside the bouquet that the fifth wife so firmly clutched. Positioning the gun, the fifth wife began holding the bouquet to her stomach. Madonna, staying her ground, kept on proudly walking down the aisle.
She wore black; it was an outfit that was not dissimilar to mine. She wore a short veil and not a mantilla like I did. She came walking down towards the casket staying closer to the left pews. The fifth wife came around the right side of the casket and was walking down the right side of the aisle looking at Madonna. She had a very, very vexed and determined – an almost trance-like, expression of self-absorption on her face. All the energy in her body was directed at Madonna.
When she was about five feet away from Madonna, she held up the bouquet and callously said, “I’m going to blow your fucking brains out!” It was filled with so much venom that it reverberated throughout the very high-ceilinged-though-tiny church. It was also very Gothic an interior. Madonna stopped truly catatonically horrified. You could see it beyond the veil. She had no entourage or bodyguards. She showed up alone, so confident was she of the coup that she had just scored at the geneticist’s.
She was so flustered that she gallantly stuttered back, “I dare you…” She was very nervous and said very quickly with a weak, little laugh. She was also vamping à la Breathless Mahoney – the character she played in Warren Beatty’s Dick Tracy film. She was, however, visibly ashen. Madonna was visibly shaken with fear.
Those persons in the left pews automatically screamed out and crouched down for cover because the fifth wife had held up the bouquet in both her outstretched arms like the gun that it so obviously hid. “Come on. You wouldn’t want to do that. That’s just stupid…” Madonna bravely said. “…You can’t do that. Besides Warren’s already dead. What are you trying to prove? You can’t do this to me! Don’t be stupid.”
The woman, however, started slowly walking towards her not buying her bullshit. At that, Madonna turned around and started to bolt and she fell down over her long-trained dress. She had already made it to the back of the pews on the left. She was much too vain, to run outside and possibly be murdered in front of the little people. So she got up and began running around the far side of the pews. Of course, as she ran away, the fifth wife could easily have shot her in the back.
Then Madonna got really pissed off, stopped against the far left wall of the church, holding out her palm at her attacker saying, “Stop it! You don’t want to do this. This is stupid. You can’t kill me. I’m Madonna!” She was just winded; the expression on her face was unbridled rage, fear, terror, chutzpah, all in one. Then the fifth wife pulled the trigger, which was the only sound in the place, releasing the magazine.
Madonna cried out and began pleading with her. It was truly a spectacle. It was really pathetic. The fifth wife then pulled on the trigger and there was a loud plopping sound. Everybody just screamed and the place became flooded with blinding blue light. It turned out to have been an older-model camera and the flashbulb from the camera as it went off.
At that, the fifth wife laughed this loud, truly callous, heavy-from-the-womb, ripe, wicked, vindictive, victorious-all-in-one laugh. It echoed throughout the church. When her echo collapsed, as Madonna stood there truly disempowered, the fifth wife uttered in a weary breath, “I always said to Warren that you’re an ugly slut. This picture will prove it.”
At that the fifth wife turned and came and sat down on the pew next to me. Her Latina family members were just going wild clapping and hysterically shrieking. Now that’s a Hollywood wife! Poor Madonna was still standing there involuntarily shaking. She was holding her chest and gasping for air like an asthmatic. Her left hand placed on her chest, with her right hand holding on to the pew, thus she stayed her ground.
Although her hand was on her chest, she was being most clever. However I knew that really where it should have been was at her pussy because what the fifth wife instinctively knew, as did I, was that she had just miscarried. Madonna was profusely bleeding. Poor Madonna was so humiliated. The look on her face was truly sad; she was sweaty and runny-nosed. She soon collapsed and had to be taken away. Of course, she would be beaten out of having Warren Beatty’s heir by the fifth wife.
The whole thing was so funny and hysterical. I was so stunned that the fifth wife was going to pull this stunt. I really thought that it was a gun; I had, at least, gotten this flash that it was a gun. The idea to have a bolt release, affecting a gun, was truly ingenious. The picture turned out to be truly horrific. It was all a joke being played on Madonna by Hollywood’s film elites who could not have cared less about her and her parvenu ambitions.
The whole affair was so very wickedly political. The whole thing was so hysterical. I wondered as to what next was going to happen. Is the fifth wife going to come forward and produce the first Warren Beatty heir – the true child? A child that would look like Warren Beatty – more like a child of the future being of multiracial heritage and a bronzed version of Warren Beatty would the fifth wife bear.
What then will she do about Madonna’s copyright of Warren Beatty’s sperm? Will the fifth wife, for producing the heir, win the legal rights to them and have them destroyed if she chooses to? Will this not, in fact, begin a Pop Religion rivalling the King, Elvis Presley’s, if Madonna had won custody of the sperm and gone on to impregnate herself and bear those miscarried twin sons because of her bonds to Warren Beatty and his two pseudo-virgin-birthed children – sons at that?
Truly, this is iconography for the new millennium, indeed.
*A very, very interesting dream. Certainly, that I would be dreaming about these people is interesting enough. I don’t pay much attention to any of them beyond the passing. I had seen Dick Tracy three weeks ago. That the whole thing would evolve the way it did was rather insightful. I was totally surprised, as much so, as was Madonna in the church.
I really did think that she was going to be shot. I thought that it would be so messy. You know, I just did not want having anybody’s can’t-wash-out bloodstains on my Giorgio Armani pants. A truly, truly funny dream this was.
*What can I say, dreams are purely experiential. I dream it and awaken, immediately bringing forth the dream experiences, committing those experiences to audio-cassette tapes. I rather enjoyed being alone and visiting with Jessye Norman in the earlier dream. Clearly, those dreams were set on a parallel Earth in another dimension and one in which the mostly Black population is differently proportioned than we humans of waking state Earth are.
On the eve of the Oscars, I thought this a fitting offering. I could never have fathomed the outcome of the fifth wife’s agendum until it unfolded. Ingenious, to say the least, was her use of the bouquet. As ever, sweet dreams and don’t forget to push off and start flying… and so what if you bump into a wall, just attempt doing so again and this time believe that you can effortless transcend the barrier. Perception is, alas, everything.
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As ever my dear sweet ennobled friends, I am ever grateful for your continued support. Please do spread the word, far and wide about this happening dream joint on the cosmic wide web. Always remember to push off and start flying… I love you more.
*Since having posted this dream blog some years back, I was always fascinated why I was simply summoned to be with the actor, River Phoenix when he passed. I did mention that sense of feeling strong resonance at the time of cadre mates’ passing. This dream was a poignant example of being called into action, to be of service to someone with whom I have a strong and connected soul bond that spans multiple past lives.
This was something that I felt at Natalie Cole’s passing and, of course, she proved to be an entity mate. In the case of River Phoenix, whose overleaves I will include here and which can now be found in the revamped and tidied up Michael Overleaves Appendix page, not only is he also an artisan soul but he happens to be a greater cadence mate of mine. This dream would not have occurred if we did not share this very strong bond; as a result of my cardinal casting, I am often called into action in dreams such as this one when entity and cadre mates pass on.
Read these dreams anew and do enjoy!.
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Whilst the Moon transited both Gemini and my first house, I would be transported to a cul de sac of the astral plane wherein I am not frequently focussed. It was Monday, November 1, 1993. At the time, as now, I did not own a television and hardly looked at it. Also, at the time, I hardly listened to radio or read newspapers et al. I was also much removed from most daily chatter as I had been off sick from work but did go in to participate in the annual Halloween costume competition which the year prior I had won when dressed in full drag and looking hotter than even Tina Turner herself in my high heels. The above photo of yours truly was taken at Halloween 1993, the day prior to this dream.
Thus it was that I would fall into sleep and immediately be summoned to be in service to the higher good. What is really interesting about the experience with the famous actor encountered in these dreams, I rather suspect that he may be a cadre mate from the tenor of the dream encounter. Too, there are a number of famous persons in my cadre and he seemed vibrationally not dissimilar to them.
That being the case, this likely explains why I was called on to be of service at the time. I am said to be rather cardinal in casting, which is clearly reflected in yours truly being inordinately gifted when it comes to fathoming the depth and breadth of the dream realms. Too, as these dreams were clearly focussed on the astral plane, naturally, there was dream flight. More than that, whilst focussed on the astral plane in the dreamtime, one did encounter at least two, possibly three, extra-human species.
As there is flight and levitation in these dreams, I pray that they will richly inspire you. Fly my darlings, fly, don’t even for a second doubt, just melt into a mischievous plié and start flying – cause you can… cause you are magic incarnate!
A woman and I were together, in this the second dream, above the Arctic Circle. This woman did remind me of the woman, who had earlier been in the previous dream encounter with Niles Ben-Daniel and seemingly his lover. I was not fully certain that this woman was one and the same as, the one posing as Niles Ben-Daniel’s lover, in the prior dream. She had a couple of siblings whom she had asked to find out what time it was.
Here, they kept time quite unusually because there was no tundra about. They, as a result, kept sundials. They grew their grass such that they were able to tell from Sol’s shadows what time of day it was. Their sundial was a natural phenomenon which used the rugged flat landscape for keeping time. Standing there, I faced due north. Sol was still in the sky, but low, and at the two o’clock position. Sol was red and potent; it was almost serene-looking.
Over time, they had planted a hedge of Chinese boxwood, which stood a foot tall. From it were a series of radial-like spokes radiating out from the centre. All told, there were twenty-four spokes; of course, the spokes lined up with each hour of the day. Even in the wintertime, the hedge though submerged maintained an imprint of itself above – in the snowed and iced over terrain. It was quite nude (barren) landscape here. Sol’s shadow was presently pointing directly at the ten o’clock position though it clearly wasn’t. Ten o’clock could also have been four hours past midnight.
I decided that it had to be around four, in the morning, which is why Sol appeared in the sky where it was. This was the time of year when Sol never sets which made it difficult for me, a novice in these parts, to readily get my bearings. Quite a strange phenomenon because my body felt nocturnally phased, yet, there in the sky was Sol as plain as the Moon. She wanted to know what time it was because she was getting ready to go down south to the ‘Southland’.
She also referred to it as, ‘the land of the setting summer Sun,’ which did make sense. She had said all that in her Inuit tongue, yet I had been able to follow perfectly well as though she had been speaking English. More than being with her, rather, I was there as an observer and took in the minutiae of this unique culture. Certainly, we were keenly aware of each other and that we were both gifted telepaths.
Next, in this the third dream, I was in a crowded interior. It was a waiting lounge in a large depot that was not unlike New York City’s Grand Central Station. A sandy marble, time-yellowed hue, the walls here were the same colour as at Grand Central Station. A high-ceilinged cavernous place it also was. The main hall had several wings that adjoined its considerable length. Here, there was natural light coming in from the bathysphere-like windows that sat way up the walls and close to the ceiling.
In that sense, this was not unlike the grand hall in which I walked with Merlin during which we encountered the exalted magus on September 4, 1988. I was seated on these large wooden benches that were old, comfortable and looked not unlike church pews. Semi-circular in shape, they gave a sense of inclusiveness to them. All around me exclusively were men. This place seemed, if you like, some sort of way station. One guy there was very slight-bodied, young and naïve-looking.
Looking at him, he wore a navy-blue track suit. He came over to sit next to me, eventually sitting on my right. Patting him on the back, I told him that it was really good to see him. I wished him a safe passage and asked that he go in peace, “Have a safe passage. Go in peace and do have a good journey…”
Of all people, it was the actor, River Phoenix – he recently overdosed on heroin, early on Sunday, October 31, yesterday. This was a very vivid dream. I was quite lucidly awakened. Feeling great compassion for his tragic departure, I thought to be of comfort to him and to uplift his spirit in whatever way possible. There and then, I realised that this was a place where persons who had recently died came whilst in transit to their final destination as returning astral plane habitués.
*This, of course, did not surprise me. Right away, I was reminded of the sense of mammoth dimensions that also exemplified the architecture of the train termini, where I had run into Merlin in that momentous dream on Friday, July 9, 1993. END.
Seated there, next to him, I exclusively turned my focus on him. I then began doing an enormous amount of energy transference, thereby healing his spirit, before he could move on. Who cares the attachments to this man, in the waking state? I have never followed his career but here, in his astral plane hour of need, we were souls and healing is the most generous gift of love. After having left his life in such a dissociate state, River Phoenix needed to be made more whole.
This is why he had seemed so naïve and as if in a daze. He saw me and purposefully began walking towards me. God only knows what he noticed in me that was different to the others. Until he was about two feet away from me, I for one had not realised that it was him. By that point, he had already been intent on coming to sit with me. He clearly needed my services.
Phoenix, River 23/8/197031/10/1993
This fragment was a second level mature artisan – third life thereat. River was in the observation mode with a goal of growth. A realist, he was in the intellectual part of emotional centre.
Body type was Lunar/Mercury.
River’s primary chief feature was self-destruction and the secondary stubbornness.
Casting for River is fifth-cast in second cadence; he is a member of greater cadence three – greater cadence mate of Arvin’s. River’s entity is six, cadre one, greater cadre 7, pod 414.
River’s essence twin is an artisan and he has a sage task companion.
River’s primary needs were: exchange, expression and power.
There are 18 past-life associations with Arvin and 16 with Merlin.
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At the level of soul, I could not have cared less who he was; his energy body’s vibration needed a good deal of realignment before he could move on. He chose me and I gladly obliged his wishes. When patting him on the back, I was keenly focussed on sending him a great deal of near-aqueous blue-white light. River Phoenix was saddened. Rather, he seemed to be in a state of shock, though, not horrified or enraged. There was just a degree of resignation as he came to terms with where he was at. When it was all over, in the brief moments that it took to lay my hand on his back, he got up to get going.
He was obliged to take his leave and move on. He seemed here truly dazed. Perhaps, these were residual effects of his having passed in a heightened soporific state. Seated there, I felt completely drained of my very breath itself. I was left feeling so overwhelmingly sad and strangely alone. Another guy had sat down, on the other side of me, whilst I energetically focussed on River Phoenix.
I can’t, for the life of me, say whether or not the guy had ambled up to join us seated there or if he had simply materialised – on the astral plane – for having just projected himself into our midst. Looking Hispanic, more than anything, this man had yellow-coloured eyes. Absolutely bewitching they were. He wore cream-coloured jeans with matching cream-coloured jacket. There was a lot of black in the clothing. This was in the style of Hip-Hop fashions.
He was a very sensitive man with a Hispanic accent and was slightly older than River Phoenix; he was about 24 or 25 years – at least he looked about that age. His hair was thick, black and curly. By way of conducting focussed energy transference, my function here was to provide counsel. I would simply tap into their vibration and, by way of their chakras, realign their energy. All of them seemed to have passed suddenly, completely unexpectedly. Thus they had a great need to become assimilated to what was clearly an unexpected turn of events.
They needed immediate supervision and companionship, until having become further acclimatised. Meanwhile, the persons around me were all being counselled by others – who were more solid-looking – whose role was like that of mine. I was, like all the others, a guide, companion and energetic facilitator to the arrivée habitués.
Architecturally, this place was so immensely massive. It was also more ancient by at least 30 millennia than the rise of the Roman Empire. Clearly, there is no way to get around the fact that this was an astral plane experience. There was also no way to get around the fact that the first man, with whom I worked, was the actor, River Phoenix. What was really impactful for me was that River Phoenix, like all the others, had absolutely no emotions. He was in a place of total detachment.
Though a sudden departure from the life being lived, his soul consciousness was totally matter-of-fact about the situation at hand. The past, his recently accidentally concluded incarnation, was concluded and behind him. Period.
Whilst we were all there, we were caught in some commotion when a Black guy appeared. He wore a blue jean jacket and wore on his face a flesh-toned fabric mask. He looked as though he had been in a burn unit at a hospital, I assumed, after having suffered massive burns to more than 95% of his body. It was the mask used for allowing skin grafts in such instances to take without becoming infected. My sense impression of his situation was that he had been in a violent car crash which turned into an explosive fireball. He had survived and was in hospital, for a while, undergoing massive skin grafting surgeries.
He also wore dark shades. The moment that he appeared, everyone instantaneously freaked out. All that one could see, was his mouth and nose; the image was upsetting, menacing. Right away, we all began fleeing that section of the grand hall. His arrival was simply instantaneous. He had simply manifested in plain view. When he came through, he brought with him a great explosive energy and immense suffering.This is what had upset the Chi in the place; it was quite an impactful energy wave that accompanied his manifestation. On closer inspection, I realised that he had not been a burn victim as he was still brandishing a large semi-automatic weapon.
Clearly, he had been holding up a business and got himself shot to death in the process. Thus, as is, he instantaneously appeared on the astral plane. The energy around his death was+ so immensely violent, as he went berserk, that it proved rather jarring for the rest of us. His body was violently sputtering away, as though, still echoing the massive volley of bullets that were being pumped into him. No doubt, a battery of over-armed police officers were only too happy to waste yet another ‘Black’ male.
We all immediately started bolting because here was he, suddenly arrived and carrying a weapon, on the astral plane to which all these arrivés were not yet fully acclimatised. There was a group of urbane Gays over to one side who kept to themselves. The Gays went truly berserk, fearful of him, as this man was clearly a zealous homophobe. That too was the other thing about this place; one was able to accurately ‘read’ a person on their arrival.
As I sat there on the pews doing my energy work with River Phoenix, most of the light flooding the hall came from off to the right and rear. From the inner hall, I went bolting along with everyone else and took cover. The armed Black man had manifested across the hall from me. Making my way from what I thought previously was the main hall, I ended up in a grand hall that was easily seven times larger than the atrium in which I had been counselling River Phoenix and then the yellow-eyed Hispanic.
As everyone else had been bolting in that direction, I made a left turn. From the main hall, I was now in another atrium; this one, however, was considerably darker. This one was several storeys high with the same colour schemata as at Grand Central Station. Though there were no discernible floors as such, at each storey there were landings. I would then bolt down to where all the other Gays were ahead of me. In a bid not to be captured by this guy, who had no awareness that he was now dead and on the astral plane, I leapt over the railing and down onto the escalator where the Gays were.
As they were all still clambering down the steps, this was not the greatest idea on my part; it was a truly chaotic scene. Deciding against pursuing the herd mentality, I willed myself from amongst them. With that I began levitating, above them and shot upwards, flying up into the nave of the towering complex. Goodness, this place was immensely massive. Soon enough, the man came to where we had been and made for the stairs from which I had just taken off. Being sufficiently distracted, I knew that he wouldn’t be able to either hear or see me way above him.
Too, he wouldn’t think to look up and see me. I flew in such a way that I progressed around a corner which took me into another wing of the massive complex. Here, there was a balcony whose wall was such that it had an indentation in the shape of an inverted top hat. Thus, the balcony was as if wrapped inside the hat. Hiding out in the cover of the balcony, I peered out – from time to time – where I saw others on lower balconies who peered up at me.
Others were off to the right in the inverted balcony. They discouraged me from coming because they thought that, somehow, my movement would attract the newcomer with semi-automatic weapon. They were of the impression that he was, in the first place, out to get me. All around, this whole episode was terribly unpleasant. It had all the chaotic madness that must surely exist, at present, in the streets of a war zone like Bosnia or Croatia.
Deciding against hiding out, I sought to be rid of this place altogether. With that, I began flying upwards towards the very ceiling of the grand hall. The ceiling was as if a force field and not a physical construct. Thus, without incident, I was able to will my way through its parameters. I was truly relieved to have made it out of there. One had the sense of leaving one dimension and moving on to another, whilst seemingly clearing the grand hall’s ceiling, and into the next dream experience.
Next, in this the fourth dream, I was outside where I immediately encountered some young teenage females. All were sarcastic, bitchy solipsistic twits. They were on an empty city street. Racy-edged, in the extreme, were there. Especially for feeling the enervation that I did for the massive energy transference work that I had undertaken with River Phoenix, I really did not care to be around these people’s energy.
At the time, I was still in flight but had slowed down, hoping possibly to interact with them. Finally, I had no time for them and their bullshit. No need to be around their imploding energy. Without haste, I flew on and went onto a side street. There, I saw a really large building from which there were some persons presently exiting.
It was as if one were looking outdoors, due west towards Fifth Avenue, in Manhattan. A young couple came from the building and entered a car which looked like a Bentley limousine. A massive stately old car it was and looked every bit as though it had been made from lead. A large structure stood to my left as I watched them drive away towards what seemed to be Fifth Avenue.
Looking to the structure, I realised that the structure was in fact St. Patrick’s Cathedral which, of course, meant that I was at 51st Street at Fifth Avenue. Naturally, the car made a left turn and went south down Fifth Avenue. Here it was nighttime with lots of snow in the street, the sidewalk, and covering just about everything. The car wanted, once on Fifth Avenue, to go westwards along 50th Street, but couldn’t because that street runs easterly one-way.
There was also too much snow jammed there in the street. So, in the end, the car went down to the south end of Saks Fifth Avenue to try and get onto 49th Street. Here in the dreamtime, contrary to the waking state arrangement, 49th Street flowed easterly. This made me realise that its attempt to go along 50th Street was not bizarre. I guess that they then intended to go easterly along 49th Street, over to Park Avenue then up 57th Street, make a left at that street, to try and get across town that way.
I figured that that major thoroughfare would not be impassable. I was keen to find out who was inside the car, which was a very regal, stately affair; they were a sophisticated well-bred couple. I was more intrigued by the car because it was mostly glass, with the rear windshield arching up to above their heads, as they sat there exuding their exalted classism. The side panelling on the outside, and where the rear windshield met the roof, was all solid gold. Atop the roof there was a beacon like on a taxi cab, however, it was made of solid gold.
Really, it was more a coat of arms than anything so crass as a taxi’s beacon; this was a truly luxurious-looking vehicle. As I inspected it, I had been in flight hovering a couple of floors above it. Rising in the air, I began speeding down on the east side of Fifth Avenue over St. Patrick’s Cathedral. When I got over the cathedral, I noticed that – unlike its waking state counterpart – this one had flying buttresses. Though it was very dark out, as though the dead of a Dark Moon night, I noticed that there was activity atop the cathedral. There were things there which I found immediately intriguing.
Abandoning my pursuit of the Bentley landau, I slowed down, coming closer to observe what was going on atop the cathedral’s roof. There, I saw wonderful fowl; there was a whole array of them which were quite large. One species was white with lots of black specs throughout its body. They were all on different ledges on the flying buttresses. All of them had nests that they were tending.
One of the nests had 8 large speckled eggs inside. There was, however, no fowl tending to this nest. Flying slowly, within ten feet of the buttresses, I inspected everything with a keen eye. This was so very astral plane in focus. Considering that I had previously been counselling River Phoenix, who had recently passed, it made sense that I should be on the astral plane. In any event, the rooftop was pitch-black and covered in tar. The masonry here was also much blackened with time’s passage. Too, there was a lot of moss covering every available nook and cranny.
I suppose that this replica of St. Patrick’s Cathedral needed to exist, here on the astral plane, to provide some sense of continuity to the dearly departed recent arrivés of the Catholic persuasion. Here on the astral plane, this St. Patrick’s Cathedral was considerably larger than its waking state counterpart. As well, it was millennia older than the Roman Coliseum. The older dead moss had left the structure blackened – along with the centuries of pollution and soot caked on in layers. Naturally, in order to get up to the roof of the nave, I had had to rise higher and beyond the buttresses.
Once higher in the air, I saw down between these two buttresses a group of Whites. They were dressed in animal skins and were, in the true sense of the word, barbaric-looking. They had not yet fully developed the ability to speak; thus, their speech consisted of a series of barks and grunts. Quite hirsute, they were obsessively fearful. Huddled on the top of the structure, they proved a smelly lot.
Everything was quite ancient and scorpionic-hued. As well, there was a tribe of black-furred monkeys with some red in them. The Barbarians also wore a skin that had a reddish hue to it which was seemingly a doeskin. Theirs was, as well, a tawny reddish complexion. On noticing me, the monkeys went wild, climbing up to the tops of the buttresses; frantically, they pounced and screamed up at me. Goodness, they had such large vicious-looking teeth; thank goodness they could not fly.
Mildly horrified, I simply levitated higher into the air and stayed clear of their none-too-evolved noise. Exceptionally tiny, they were also very intelligent-looking. Truth be told, they looked much more evolved intellectually than their simian cousins, the Barbarians. Goodness, they were feisty and noisy. Wanting to investigate everything about the queerness of the sight of me, they were truly inquisitive.
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Going higher, I reached to the top of the nave where I noticed a couple lying there. They were lying on their backs. Looking not unlike the sphinx’s, theirs were the most abnormal-looking skulls that were splayed and large. Their clothing was unusual-coloured; however, on closer inspection, it turned out to have been their skin. Basically, their skin was as if a floral-printed fabric. Very brightly coloured, their skin was an interesting sight… to say the least. They lay there, looking not the least bit surprised at the sight of me. They also seemed not inclined to do anything but enjoy themselves in repose.
They seemed so mysterious. Looking down, I alighted to investigate. I spent some time looking down at their feet where their skin was also uniformly distributed. I had wanted to leave but decided to head in the opposite direction; as they lay there, their feet were in my way. I didn’t want to have to upset or interact with them. They seemed alien, in the true sense of the word, but were not in fact to be disturbed. Silently, they lay there and directly looked at me. One had the sense that they could have turned deadly in a femtosecond and gone at me like a cobra on the attack. They had very cool eyes that were powerful, truly scorpionic. Theirs were the kind of eyes that were beguiling but utterly untrustworthy.
*Their eyes much reminded me of that dream encounter with Lars Gamst, set in the British Isles some centuries back, wherein we encountered a litter of oversized cats, which turned out to be not only psychic but also feral. This was back in the summer of 1988 – before recording the dreams on audio-cassettes. END.
Soon enough, I flew away from there because this was much too astrally focussed an experience. I might add, as dreams go, it was one that was very much so real and quite layered. It was simply much too intense; so, with that, I withdrew being energetically focussed therein.
On this the eve of what would have proven Merlin’s 72nd birthday, I share these rather totemic dreams. This November 18, 2019 marks the 30th anniversary of Merlin’s passing of full-blown AIDS, on a cold November Saturday morning when icy snowflakes aimlessly drifted across the city streets. Whilst at dinner recently, a dear friend asked if I am never saddened at the loss of Merlin and if I ever do miss him. Of course, as I write this blog, I am warmed by the fact that on December 2, 2006 – almost 13 years ago, Merlin was reincarnated in a canalled northern European city. Merlin is now female and the third of three children – two older brothers.
What’s more, Merlin reborn has eyes that would now be even more phenomenal than when last I gazed besotted and rhapsodic into those large, soulful hazel eyes. Whereas Merlin was on his sixth life as a seventh level mature scholar soul, now reincarnated and female that soul is now living its first incarnation as a first level old scholar. These next dreams were dreamt in May, 1989 when Merlin was then still incarnate and at that point, he daily listened to the audiocassette recording of my dreams. This he did because they fascinated him; more than that, he did so because ever the director, he was keen to give insight and direction.
“Come on, Arvin, you have to be more descriptive. I have no idea if the car was blue, green, for that matter a convertible and was it a tan or white leather interior?”
Certainly, it can never be underestimated the pivotal role that Merlin played in the depth and thoroughness of the audiocassette recorded dreams. He was ever a loving but tough taskmaster and happy am I to have had his loving input and direction. After having listened to the recorded dream being now shared herein, Merlin came to dinner at our 20 Amelia Street home and declared, “Well, let’s not get too caught up in trying to interpret and figure out the symbolism of those dreams.” After, he winked, we softly kissed; his lips as ever warm and full as internally an unrelenting disease determinedly consumed his body… but never alas his spirit.
These were potent, lucid astral plane dreams. To say that they were totemic would be understating fact. The dreams were a glimpse beyond the veil as Merlin shamanically wound down another incarnation and got ready to put to rest another life. Ever focussed on my spiritual maturation, I am immensely proud to have survived so long after Merlin’s passing. Had anyone wagered that I would be still in the game 30 years later, I would have said, “You are reading the wrong tea leaves.”
Well, here I am still shaking arse and the Rathore to the core. These totemic dreams were dreamt on Monday, May 22, 1989, audiocassette recorded on tape IX of the 250 audiocassette recording of my dreams and yet to be found in Volume one the 25 Volume dream opus. Too, at the time, the Moon then transited both Sagittarius and my seventh house – wherein my natal Moon is posited. Truly few are they who are brave enough to drink from the chalice that is life.
Your support and choice to be focussed herein are both humbling and a source of inordinate pride. I am immensely grateful. Sweet dreams and as ever do remember, death is just a shift in focus; one is merely focussed at a different frequency. Besides, as one rather beguiling astral plane habituée put it, “Trust me, death is not wasted on the living.”
Dreams serve as the most expedient conduit for sustaining the bonds and communion of souls between persons who are no longer focussed in the physical plane but refocussed on the astral plane between lives as astral plane habitués whilst resting, reviewing and weaving the tapestry of future incarnations. So, drink and live in the moment. Take a deep breath, open your eyes within – don’t be afraid – and there within the silken folds of self is the massive beauty which is spirit.. go on explore and discover the true you. I love you more.
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The first dream found me posited on a hilltop looking down into a valley which then rose up into a lower hill. From the vantage of the mountains in Sandy Point, St. Kitts or Nevis, the view was of being down towards the ocean. Topographically, it seemed more like St. Kitts – however, this was definitely set in Nevis. I looked out and what did I see but a house on this hill; it was a very huge and lovely house.
Down from the sky, before the house on the rolling plains, fell a column of white light that shimmered. The manifesting light had the power of a tornado and it was a force that moved… it undulated. Truth be told, this was a liquefied white light – not unlike a waterspout. As compared to the left and right sides of the shaft, it was as though the centre of the light was faded. The centre of the column of light seemed invisible but it wasn’t. As a matter of fact, it was sort of greyish-coloured.
*A very fleeting dream this was but it was one that was potent. The sky overhead was ominously dark as though the cloud cover was simply to mask something else. There was no getting around the fact that the light was used as some sort of transport or conveyance. The light was being used for the relay of energies between the house’s occupants, if there were any, and whatever was beyond the clouds.
The dream seemed to have abruptly collapsed because I had happened on the scene. There was no one else about. Too, it was the only house on the landscape. I felt as though I had been ejected, from the dream, for having been there and witnessed what I wasn’t supposed to have been privy to. The dream collapsed around me; I was deprived any further knowledge of what was going on. In light of the dream that would follow, it became fairly obvious that the light column was channelling.
Eventually, the astra-human soul quality of Merlin’s would quite potently manifest. Of course, just as in the dream of Thursday, July 7, 1988VI, again, there was a lone house on the landscape. As will become evident, in later moments of the dreams, Merlin’s soul quality would manifest. END.
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The next dream immediately found me in bed with Merlin. He got up and he looked very old. Looking very tired and old, he turned around to me then went out into the hallway. He turned around and asked me, “When are you going to start moving on because I’d like to die by the end of this year? When are you going to go back to school? I’m really tired of this; I’m tired of this illness… I just want to move on.”
He was terribly impatient. Indeed, Merlin here was very forceful. That was when he began shapeshifting; Merlin underwent a metamorphosis before my eyes. He became, as he spoke, more impatient. I watched spellbound as his physiology morphed into the very astral-looking faun – though elfin-looking, he was taller than his known humanoid self; Merlin became the archetypal Chiron. I started crying sounding real childlike and said, “No… no! Please, please don’t!”
His face then became part of the pink walls, thus his transformed face was flesh-toned. Here his face looked faunlike; his eyes were on the sides. He had the face of a faun and I only ever saw the right eye. The eye was black-within-black. The eye looked down at me because the head – which was the only thing visible when mounted – was up on the wall. Shapeshifted, Merlin’s was a very hard-looking eye.
Merlin’s eye rapaciously looked right into the soul. An ancient eye it was. I caressed the softness of the fur-like skin and pleaded with him and said, “Please, I can’t live without you. I couldn’t go on. Please don’t lose your strength and get ill,” I pleaded with the shapeshifted Merlin and cried. I was aware of being here in bed asleep whilst dreaming and that my body was going through the motions of crying and being pained. Merlin did not hear me, although, I thought that as I slept that I was talking aloud in my sleep.
*This was an intensely upsetting dream because it dramatised how Merlin wished to be allowed to move on. He no longer cared to be focussed in the life. Though it was obvious that he could have soldiered on for months more, he simply lost the desire to go on being focussed. Clearly, this was owing to the bilious discord created by Tytanikka and Oleg’s betrayal.
Though he never physiologically resembled the classic centaur, Merlin’s face not only further morphed becoming like a fawn’s, more accurately, his head and face did have the eventual shape of a young bison’s – very Taurean, strong and potent.
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On preparing for the video to celebrate the 70th anniversary of Merlin’s birth back in 2017, I decided then to head off to the costumer, Malabar on McCaul Street where artist and lover George Hawken lived in the late 80s to early 90s. Inspired by the first dream of Merlin had 41 years ago in July 1978, I decided to get a cowl as a tribute to the cowl Merlin wore in the inaugural dream encounter with him, four years before having met on Friday, October 1, 1982 in New York City. So, there was I at Mount Pleasant Cemetery on Saturday, July 15, 2017 in my cowl and the panama hat purchased at Versailles to escape the heat. I thought it fitting as Merlin always loved wearing panama hats.
My trusty friend, J.J. who happens to be an artisan entity mate whom I have known in 20 past lives –- which is a high incidence of contact -– was the director. Initially, I had hoped to throw a white party on the lawn to the southwest of the chapel at Mount Pleasant Cemetery and have a drone film the event where a gathering of friends would raise a glass to Merlin on the anniversary of his ennobled birth. Merlin always threw a white party each year for his birthday at his parents’ stunning backyard in north Toronto’s Servington Crescent.
The plan was not approved by the cemetery and thus, one had to improvise. I got my panama hat and my cowl and together, we proceeded with a dozen long-stem white roses to visit Merlin’s resting place. I had a pretty good idea what I was after. With the matching white cowl, I wanted to evoke the magic of meeting Merlin in that initial dream which is shared in volume one of the dream memoirs, which is already published: Merlin and Arvin: A Shamanic Dream Odyssey.
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In the hardcover edition of human civilisation’s first dream memoirs, the initial dream encounter with Merlin is shared. The dream begins on page 110 in the hardcover edition. I wanted the same sense of wonderment and magic that I felt for having met Merlin in that first dream four years prior to having met reflected in the video. In that dream, Merlin’s appearance was preceded by a white totemic creature which seemed, in its astral plane outréness, to be part Russian wolfhound, part alpaca, part dog.
So, moving to the lawn, having descended the steps of the chapel, I began walking across the open lawn towards the statuesque lion-festooned mausoleum with the five remaining white long-stem white roses. Seven roses, of course, were left at Merlin’s grave -– one rose for each of our seven glorious years together. As I stepped onto the lawn, it seemed magical… timeless even. Slowly, confidently as I approached the filmmaker at the other end of the lawn, I thought of Merlin and that initial dream.
Just then, I very distinctly thought of Merlin greeting me by purring, “Hello Lambs.” As if right on cue, from off stage left, an adult deer came from behind the bushes and tombstones that line the far edges of the open lawn. Never before had I seen a deer at Mount Pleasant Cemetery. Indeed, the good burghers of Forest Hill who clearly regularly jogged in the park-like setting stopped and were overheard remarking that they had never seen a deer in the cemetery before. All that I could do was tear up and continue walking as the deer then bolted and ran from stage left to right as I continued my stride uninterrupted –- unfazed by the appearance of an adult deer on the grounds of the cemetery. What is more astounding, is that J.J. at the time was filming my walk; at the last minute, I decided against a run-through as I was concerned about the natural light possibly changing if we were to rehearse the shot.
Unbeknownst to me, the deer after having made it to stage right, then returned to the centre of the lawn and stood there perfectly still whilst observing my progression across the lawn. J.J. who was astounded by the occurrence remarked that he had just witnessed a miracle. There is no doubt in my mind as I tried to recapture the magic of that initial dream encounter that there was a subtle validation of that dream from the magical shaman himself on the other side by having had Merlin’s spirit step in as director emeritus and had the deer enter the shot as validation and a token of his appreciation of the love that we shared and my steadfast loyalty to him. After crossing the lawn and turning to watch the deer stand there, looking down the lawn at me, I felt such utter peacefulness and abandonment of spirit — just as when alone and intimate in the dark with Merlin.
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Yes, I believe in magic as did Merlin and as though an appreciation of having stridently done everything to fulfil his mandate to me, Merlin’s astral body conjure up the same magic here and now as he had in July 1978 –- four years before slipping inside a Hell’s Kitchen walk-up and readily winning me over with his sexy elfin charm, magic and sex that proved the most grounding shamanic passion… every time. Standing there, I was reminded, too, of that dream in 1989 before Merlin passed wherein he shape-shifted and became a fawn-like creature who morphed and became one with the wall in our Cabbagetown home.
All the music chosen for this 13-minute video is music that Merlin loved whilst incarnate and to which he returned time and again -– whether at Joe Morton’s tiny Upper West Side apartment in autumn of 1983, Toronto’s 20 Amelia Street in tony Cabbagetown. From Glenn Gould’s mastery of Johann Sebastian Bach’s Goldberg Variations, to Elton John, Stevie Wonder, Gladys Knight and Dionne Warwick singing That’s What Friends Are For –- in that segment of the video, I included friends whom Merlin valued: Kareem Benezra, myself, Wayne Robson and his oldest and most loyal friend, the ever-gracious, Maxime Gascoigne-de Montigny.
Of course, for Stevie Wonder’s Isn’t She Lovely, I exclusively included photos of Merlin and his very handsome and gracious father, David Ben-Daniel. Whereas I favoured Sir Paul McCartney’s Hey Jude, Merlin ever loved George Harrison and especially My Sweet Lord. Of course, one Saturday, whilst staying at actor, Joe Morton’s Manhattan apartment, when Merlin and I secretly committed to being together, we slow-danced to Supertramp and Roger Hodgson’s unmatched magical vocals on Supertramp’s Breakfast In America.
Additionally, Jeffrey Osborne’s On the Wings of Love which was one of Merlin’s favourite ballads is also included. Merlin loved Black male soul singers: Otis Redding, Marvin Gaye, Jeffrey Osborne –- most especially –- George Benson, Al Green, Teddy Pendergrass, Donny Hathaway, Barry White. Most of all, I am especially proud of the video that J.J. and I have created; I think that it masterfully captures the depth of my love and fealty to the most fabulously magical shaman encountered on this incarnation’s spiritual odyssey.
Naturally, before having left for Mount Pleasant Cemetery, I had flooded my apartment with the music that appears in the video. Perhaps, unwittingly by so doing, I was invoking Merlin’s spirit, which later joined us when he played ultimate director and pulled off the most magical bit of stage direction –- an adult deer in the middle of a cemetery in the heart of mid-town Toronto. Lastly, I played the sublimely soulful Shirley Horn’s interpretation of, Here’s to Life! Whilst raising a glass of coconut water, I had forgotten to pick up some champagne the evening prior and it was too early in the morning to find champagne anywhere –- the lighting was way too good. Besides who knows if that magical deer would have been anywhere about.
Here’s to life… most of all, here’s to Merlin… here’s to dream shamans everywhere!
Merlin’s mandate to me ever remains:
“Please my darling, I want you to write about our lives together. I promise you, however possible, I am going to send you dreams to include in the story of our love… our lives together.”
Anna Wintour Vogue Editor-in-Chief; because there would be no Met Gala were it not for her.
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Dowager Duchess (Joan Collins) in Valentino… there is something to be said for staying power.
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Alexa Chung; always stylish and those shoes!
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Cardi B… because someone had to take up the slack for Rihanna.
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Céline Dion: Reine de Charlemagne; true eccentric and guaranteed to bring it… every time.
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Cody Fern; when the dandy does camp… look out.
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Because it’s Emily Blunt… that’s why!
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Florence Welch because dream encounters with this one are truly evolved.
Because if André Leon Tally could not make it; someone had to show the children how camp is done. Go ahead, Hamish Bowles.
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When camp meets art, along comes Janelle Morae!
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Diane von Furstenberg… staying power and then some.
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Kate Moss… not exactly camp but then again…
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Katie Holmes… some ladies never do camp.
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If only passingly so but there is something about Jared Leto that reminds me of Merlin and the few dream encounters with him would at the very least suggest that he may be a cadre mate of ours.
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Who cares if it works or not, Katy Perry is back with Orlando Bloom and that’s all that matters.
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J-Lo and the best accessory that anyone could hope for A-Rod.
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The Queen slaying as only a queen can.
Lewis Hamilton: I don’t know about camp but he should by now have been knighted.
Salma Hayek is in the house… that’s who!
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Priyanka Chopra & Nick Jonas; it is fairly obvious that if you attended one of the two royal weddings in 2018 at St. George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle, you would most likely end up being invited this year to the Met Gala. Priyanka looked much better in years past.
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Serena Williams & Alexis Ohanian became a power couple for walking the cobbled red carpet down to the lower ward at Windsor Castle’s St. George Chapel in May 2018 at the wedding of TRH Duke & Duchess of Sussex.
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Camp? Cool and Sophisticated Zoe Saldana definitely is.
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Nothing screams camp like Lupita Nyongo’s gold afro picks.
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Zendaya takes Disney into the realms of camp!
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There is something definitely camp about being goddamn illiterate… Just look at Tiffany Haddish announcing the 2018 Oscar nominations.
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There ain’t nothin’ camp about Kylie and Kendall Jenner coming through being fierce.
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Penelope Cruz in Chanel…. yes please!
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Ciara in fishtail, glam afro and all that fierce attitude… Lord Jesus!
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Billy Porter showing the children how you do camp. Goodness, I am reminded of so many beautiful souls from NYC in the 80s, who are no longer with us. Camp never looked more fierce!
Michael: This fragment was a third-level mature artisan – second life thereat. Nancy was in the passion mode with a goal of growth. An idealist, she was in the emotional part of intellectual centre.
Body type was Solar/Saturn.
Nancy’s primary chief feature was self-deprecation and the secondary stubbornness.
The fragment Nancy is fifth-cast in sixth cadence; he is a member of greater cadence five. Nancy’s entity is seven, cadre four, greater cadre 1, pod 129.
Nancy’s essence twin is an artisan and the task companion a warrior.
Nancy’s primary needs were: expression, expansion and power.
There are 10 past-life associations with Arvin and 6 with Merlin.
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What a truly great voice. Though over the years, I had attended many Nancy Wilson concerts, one in particular remains the most memorable. It was the late set at the Blue Note Jazz Club in New York City’s West Village. A Saturday night performance, it was at the end of the run and Ms. Wilson was in fine form. With me that evening was Milan Newcombe, the rather eccentric lover of mine who had the most magical residence in Toronto’s Kensington Market.
Milan and I met about a month before the 350th anniversary celebrations of Montréal in May 1992. The day of the anniversary, there was a parade through the city’s main artery at night time; quite a unique and spectacular sight. We stayed that weekend in a loft at the corner of Ontario and St. Laurent Streets and that night, I wore a pair of six-inch, black patent leather Bally talons hauts, a pair of extra short blue jeans that nicely sported the goods, a large, white pirate’s shirt, a confident smile whilst holding hands with the coolest motherfucker I had met since having met Merlin – Milan made a most pleasurable adventure of living.
Having just returned from a weekend in New York City with Manhattan cabaret singer, Frans Bloem, I was crawling the halls of the St. Mark’s bathhouse at Wellesley on Yonge, in a bid to get over decidedly banal sexual relations with Frans. A great human being to be sure but sex should not be as ennuiyant and tedious as needlepoint. Well into the late hours, after a few hookups, a long lean body caught my eye as it lay there, waiting to either prey or be preyed on.
An hour later we emerged into the gritty, callously unforgiving light of daybreak and hopped on our bikes. Together we rode west along Wellesley, cut through University of Toronto campus and onto Spadina, rode south on said avenue to the most magical lair imaginable. There above a series of Chinese shops, Milan owned the two storey apartment that was filled with an assortment of Bohemians – or at least trust fund types, bored out of their skulls whilst waiting to collect their inheritance.
Milan possessed the largest music library, I had yet or since seen. Moreover, within that library were the most extensive recordings of harpsichord music. If that were not specialised enough, Milan owned a harpsichord which, after we had riotously slapped, nipple-bitten, punched and me gourmandise his pygmy fin whale schlong: girth and length that makes your upper lip sweat and eyes roll back like Whitney Houston in full song, he would spend the next hour playing what proved the most captivating instrument. Always at such times, I would become sponge-like and expansive, feeling as though in between wakefulness and sleep with a plethora of the most lucid past-life dreams flooding and surfacing my conscious mind. Not surprisingly, that harpsichord proved a touchstone to our past-life connections and specifically to the life as court musicians in London, England during the reign of King George III and the Regency when Milan, Merlin and I plus a whole host of others whom I have known in this lifetime were greatly, creatively fulfilled.
This fragment was a third level mature sage – first incarnation at this level, likely to repeat the level – in the passion mode with a goal of acceptance. An idealist, he was in the intellectual centre, emotional part.
Milan’s body type was Saturn/Venus.
Milan’s primary chief feature was impatience and the secondary arrogance.
The essence twin is a sage, also discarnate. An artisan task companion he’s got, who is incarnate.
This fragment is second-cast, cadence sixth in the greater cadence, entity six, cadre one, greater cadre 7, node 414. Milan is in the same entity as Arvin and Merlin, sharing a strong connection through the arts.
The three primary needs for Milan were: freedom, power and communion.
Q: Past lives of note for Milan:
Michael: This fragment has had many lives in the theatre and in performing, as would be expected, due to his soul age, mature and role, sage.
He has been a well-known courtesan in nineteenth century France, to a second-in-command lieutenant to Napoleon Bonaparte and was involved in many secretive meetings to which she was privy, due to her ability to keep silent.
She, however, was found guilty of espionage, at a later date, and hanged, at the age of 24.
This sage has also performed with students of Hippocrates in the fifth century Common Era in Crete and also became interested in herbal medicine at that time.
Lives in the performing arts total 24 altogether and have been both notable, such as in China in the eighth century as a puppeteer or in the caves of Borneo when he was a painter of walls with what would be called ancient hieroglyphs.
This fragment was also present in the sixteenth century in Venice and was a student of a lesser artist, not sure about the name.
Q: Past lives with Arvin:
Michael: First of all, let us comment that these two fragments did have an agreement which had to do with the validation of personal expression.
Number of past incarnations total twenty and include:
These two fragments were present in the “George” life; King George III of England, when the sage was a fellow musician and trumpeter. The sage was competitive with the artisan and envious of the artisan’s natural talents.
They have been married once before officially in an area of the Middle East, eleventh century BCE, when they were in an arranged marriage having to do with land and money exchange. They did get along reasonably well due to the entity connection but did argue.
Makers of small ornamental objects in the first century Common Era, Crete. Both were female and cousins.
These two fragments completed a sequence having to do with abandonment/abandoner in the São Paulo incarnation. The female artisan seduced the sage and then subsequently refused to continue in the relationship which led to emotional turmoil for the sage.
This first part of this sequence took place in the 1300’s in Spain when the reverse occurred but the sexes were the same, artisan still female, seduced by the sage then abandoned.
Had this not been an agreement, there would have been mindfuck karma incurred.
(KB: this was an important set of incarnations)
Q: Past lives with Merlin and the ET:
This fragment was present in the life aforementioned in the fourth century in an area of Tibet and was the mother of the task companion, former-Merlin but separated when the scholar, former-Merlin, was quite young due to religious training.
There have been an additional four of note including one in the ninth century in China when these two fragments were enemies and came quite close to incurring karma; through combat, not agreed upon in advance, as well as one in the first century Common Era when they were married to the same male fragment; Common Law, Palestine area.
This sage has also shared three past associations with Arvin’s essence twin which have included living in a small village in western Canada in the 1400’s both male. They were childhood friends.
Additionally they have fought side-by-side “on stage” when members of a travelling theatrical group in northern Italy in the sixteenth century. The essence twin died of a fall which the sage tried to prevent but was unable to, happened when both were teens.
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Milan was magical; his home lit throughout by candelabras and the salon an exacting reproduction of an 18th century English salon. One of the most beautiful things about sleeping over with Milan at his magical lair, was that many were the nights when I would – whilst lying next to him in bed, pleasured and satiated – spontaneously astral project. During these marvellous OBEs (out-of-body experiences), I would get up out of my body, turn around to look at our smiling pleasured faces harmoniously lying in bed fast asleep, see the cord of silvery white light that attached my astral body to my physical body. This cord more so resembles a caravan of tiny balls of light that are unbreakable and which attach at the solar plexus of both bodies – astral and physical. Milan was the most sensual lover and the greatest kisser.
This song was Milan’s favourite tune and Nancy Wilson his favourite Jazz singer – just as Natalie Cole and Betty Carter mine and John Hirsch was Ella Fitzgerald’s undisputed biggest enthusiast. Until having met me, Milan had never listened to Jazz or explored the genre. However, like all persons in the positive pole of their goal of acceptance, he embraced, appreciated and explored the newfound treasure that for him Jazz would prove. With an intensity never before experienced, Milan insisted on venturing to every Jazz concert imaginable. To that end, we took several trips to Chicago, New Orleans and, of course, New York City to nurture our souls and forge to greater depths the bond we shared. Whenever the loving was good and god do I love a cock… especially his – hey, three billion women can’t be wrong, Milan would then play some Nancy Wilson. Our love faded on my relocation to Vancouver – he hated grey, dreary and rainy weather, I was come undone one early morning whilst meditating in the pyramid in Vancouver, Milan appeared to me and said so long. I knew that he had died that day – another lover passed of AIDS. I will ever experience the sweetest memories when listening to Nancy Wilson.
Sweet and very blissful dreams indeed be yours Nancy: griot, linguist, shaman and truly great performer.
As ever, thanks for your ongoing support, dream without giving a damn… cause you can and all the more reason to push off and start flying.
Michael: This fragment is a fifth level mature artisan – second life thereat. George is in the power mode with a goal of growth. An idealist, he is in the moving part of intellectual centre.
Body type is Venus/Mars.
George’s primary chief feature is subdued arrogance and the secondary impatience.
The fragment George is fifth-cast in third cadence; he is a member of greater cadence four. George’s entity is five, cadre one, greater cadre 7, pod 414 – this is a cadre mate of Arvin’s and Merlin’s.
George’s essence twin is also an artisan and he has a sage task companion.
George’s primary needs are: expression, communion and power.
There are 10 past-life associations with Arvin and 14 with Merlin.
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Music is a language and Jazz is the language of a people; it speaks to no one else like it does us. No other music readily restores one’s humanity and sense of self like Jazz does. Interestingly, when a student at ballet school, I lived the most famous quote uttered by Diana, Princess of Wales in that Panorama interview that she gave to Martin Bashir: “There is no better way to dismantle a personality than to isolate it.”
That is why during my two hellish years in Winnipeg, the music of Jazz is what saved me. Interestingly enough, three musicians I looked to during that time more than any others; years later, I would discover that they are all cadre mates: Natalie Cole, John Coltrane and George Benson.
With the passing of cadre mates Natalie Cole and Roy Hargrove, it is high time to celebrate and pay homage to George Benson while he remains focussed here and now.
Keep on flying right whether in the most blissful of dreams or the waking state’s unforgiving grittiness… then again, it is also maddeningly beautiful!
Michael: This fragment was a fifth-level mature scholar – 2nd life thereat. Roy was in the perseveration mode with a goal of growth. Roy was a realist who was in the intellectual part of moving centre.
Roy’s primary chief feature was arrogance and his secondary was impatience.
Roy’s body type was Mercury/Lunar.
The fragment Roy is second-cast in the fifth cadence; the fragment is in the first greater cadence. Roy is a member of entity six, cadre one, greater cadre 7, pod 414 – here we have another entity mate of both Arvin’s and Merlin’s.
Roy’s essence twin is a scholar and the task companion is a sage.
Roy’s three primary needs were: expression, adventure and security.
There are 9 past-life associations between Roy and Arvin and 14 between him and Merlin.
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I have always exquisitely found centre for listening to this recording. Time seems to drift away and ideas flow with greater ease… indeed, how sweet it is to be richly inspired by an entity mate.
“I’m in service. I am here to touch people and make them feel better through music.” – Roy Hargrove.
Well if that is not validation of being a member of an entity six of a cadre one, I don’t know what it.
I always good for long days after a concert of his. A beautiful human being.
Sweet and blissful dreams be yours dear ennobled entity mate.
On the final full day of this trip to London, it was also the 29th anniversary of Merlin’s passing. I had planned on visiting Spencer House, the Monday evening prior; however, the event which was a ticketed lecture had been cancelled – this was my only chance at getting to Spencer House.
Climbing from the Underground at Green Park, the park was relatively empty and there was a crisp bite to the early morning air as I walked along the periphery of the park’s western edge. I opted to take that route and be close to the park’s trees than use the suggested route – St. James Street and St. James Place. The only persons in the park were intermittent joggers, looking fit; strange in November it was to see persons running in shorts.
Walking along, I passed a narrow break in the shrubbery; the narrow path that ran beneath on the houses stated that it was a private road and to keep out. A few more steps revealed the signage; yes, indeed, this was the place that I was looking for. Turning back, I made for the private narrow pathway and awaited as a tanned, moneyed man approached with a wonderful, happy dog before him. The fat little thing tried its best to act on his vibes and grumbled; staying my ground, I waited for him to get closer, said hello and asked if this was the way to Spencer House.
“Is this the way to Spencer House?”
“It is a private path…” he replied from behind thicker, darker and more-expensive-than-mine sunglasses, to which I brushed past his American accent by elegantly rebutting, “Thanks, I’ll find my way…”
Entrance to Spencer House: looking west to Green Park & East.
On entering Spencer House, I noticed that the splayed and slightly bloated feeling that began on approaching the stately home continued. Inside were two men; both were rather pleasant. We began speaking; for the next half an hour, we warmly visited. Seemingly, there was a group tour booked and they thought that I had simply arrived especially early.
As members for the guided tour arrived, I slipped into the ante room and enjoyed the still-life. Remarkably, there was a real ease for being in his place, which seemed more than passingly familiar. Finally, when enough of us were arrived for the tour, a silver-haired lady with clear, focussed eyes entered the foyer, walked up to me and smiling, we warmly greeted. A group of no more than twenty-five persons, the informal gathering was cosy and engaging.
As the tour began in earnest, it dawned on me that this house was remarkably familiar. There were no doubts in my mind that I had never previously visited it; however, even the tour guide approached me and asked when I had last been to the house. She was convinced that I had been there before and scoffed at my response that I had never before visited the stately home. She had done so because I seemed with uncanny accuracy to know which door to next use to progress on the tour. That aside, the energy between us flowed with the greatest ease.
As she spoke, the guide mentioned that Jerry Hall and Rupert Murdoch, who lived in the same street as Spencer House had actually had their wedding reception in the Georgian masterpiece. As she spoke of the ladder, I suddenly experienced a vision and it was of seeing the room as it looked during Georgian times; however, as in dreams everything was back-to-front from the current life experience. Indeed, I had definitely been in this room in the past; moreover, I had a rather memorable dream, which was set in this house. Then as I intently looked to one corner of the room, the rather knowledgeable tour guide announced that in that very corner, Vice Admiral Horatio Nelson loved sitting in that spot as he was a frequent and favoured guest to the house as the 2nd Earl Spencer had been First Lord of the Admiralty.
In this marvellous salon is a painting of the Death of General Wolfe… it is even more grand and emotive than the painting of General Wolfe’s death on the Plains of Abraham at the Royal Ontario Museum.
During that time, as a countertenor with Merlin (then female) my accompanist on harpsichord that I would have encountered Vice Admiral Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson. I have dreamt of this man many times and some were set in the very house where, though it had not been planned, on the 29th anniversary of Merlin’s passing, I was taking a tour.
Just before we left the library, the tour guide then announced as she drew our attention outside the window from the library, there on the grounds of Green Park were cattle and other livestock kept. Indeed, in one such past-life dream, which was set at Spencer House, there was the intense smell of livestock. For this reason, I had assumed on awaking that this stately home on the edge of vast acreage was situated in the English countryside rather than in London.
Definitely, this room – the great room – was familiar; however, somehow, it did not seem as large as it ought to have been.
The view from the great room out to the beauty of Green Park. Suddenly, it dawned on me as I looked out the window that is why on Armistice Day after I left the splendid exhibition: Russia, Royalty & the Romanovs at Queen’s Gallery, Buckingham Palace and cut through Green Park en route to Green Park Station, I felt so joyous.
That is why too, for moving past Spencer House earlier on November 11, 2018 and in essence, becoming harmonised with the locale of a past life that I would have such lucid flying dream activity on returning to the hotel that late afternoon and napping.
Without doubt one specific dream was centred in this room and there, a play was being staged in the past life dream. In between acts, one retired to this room from the great room and visited whilst the performers took almost forever at costume changes.
This was the setting of great music and laughter; indeed, I may well have performed for the Georgian glitterati on this balcony/stage-like staircase.
Lady Spencer’s room. lovely.
The Music Room where 2.5 centuries earlier, Merlin and I were in creative full bloom. I had a really powerful response when in this room. I was left teary eyed and on looking in the mirror, I actually saw the outline of my aura; it was silvery as it picked up the stunning sunlight streaming through the windows on either side. Somewhere in spirit, Merlin was with me and there was further validation that this place, this day… indeed, nothing is coincidental.
This room was pure sensory overload. I felt gay and as though on the cusp of flying. This visit was more adventure than even I could have imagined. When the tour was concluded, I warmly parted with the staff and assured them that I would be back. Then out into all this balmy, glorious sunshine, I headed into St. James Street and made my way to Piccadilly Street.
Feeling way too glorious, I decided against using the Underground and instead, headed east along Piccadilly and slipped into the Burlington Arcade’s splendour, browsed then went coffee table book-shopping at the Royal Academy. Though I hardly had room to pack the six books. Well in excess of 300£, the handle-barred and zoot suit-wearing poseur – eccentricity is never affected, asked way too condescendingly what did I mean by VAT “dear” and why would I get money back. You blasted, silly little twit; as I do not gladly suffer fools, I shot back, “Look do us both a favour and go restock these… and try finding a brain while you are at it…” the latter stated whilst walking away from the counter; you’ll get no commission from me. Who are these people, forever trying so damn hard?
With that, it was across the street into Fortnum & Mason to buy more teas and rose petal marmalade and jelly. From there, further easterly I bopped and grooved in the glorious sunlight and circumambulated Piccadilly Circus and bailed into Coventry Street and into the crowded intensity of Leicester Square.
From there, I snuck from the rear of the National Gallery and inside.
The delightful guide at Spencer House had insisted that I return to the National Gallery before leaving London and catch the Mantegna and Bellini exhibition. She could not have spoken more highly of it. I did tell her that I had reservations about seeing Italian art as it was much too ecclesiastic for my liking. However, since she had been such a gracious host, I decided to just this once to go with an open mind and just explore.
You cannot believe how fast, I got out of there. As I said to the West African museum worker, who asked why I had left the show so quickly, “You cannot imagine how deeply disturbing I find a culture that goes to such great length to never address in their art their savagely ‘civilising’ influence in the world. It is as though it never happened or they played positively no role whatsoever in the brutal murder, enslavement, extinction of peoples and cultures. His response was, to the victor go the spoils and the shaping of history in his image; he added that he was very very proud that I am aware, unlike so many of us. With that, we bumped fists and it was back out into the bright sunlight of this glorious day.
Apart from the usual suspects, Yodas seemingly levitating – now there’s a gig! – I made it past a rather engaging African artist who had the soul of a sage if ever anyone ever did. Being drawn to its beauty, I drew closer to get a really good shot of St. Martin-in-the-Fields and it was then I made the most glorious of discoveries.
Well, there could be no better way to restore the spirit after the disquiet that I experienced for moving through the Mantegna & Bellini show. Great art should reflect life, not neatly reinvent and compartmentalise away all that which one would rather not address – likely, though, Bellini had no knowledge of Columbian expeditions to the New World.
Presentation at the Temple – Giovanni Bellini c 1460
Certainly, the prominent artists of the 16th century: Tintoretto, Botticelli, Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Titian were supported by the Church of Rome, which by its patronage of these artists was intent on depicting itself in a glowing ecclesiastical light rather than the brutal realism which afforded it the prominence and wealth it then enjoyed… which endures even now.
So with that, richly inspired by both the guitarist and Spencer House and all that it represented, I slipped into the National Portrait Gallery, to drink once more Wim Heldens masterful Oil on Canvas of the collectors Harry and Carol Ann Djanogly – she passed earlier this year. Satiated of spirit, it was off to grab a bite and then a nap of glorious dream-filled sleep – one of which was a flying dream. God it felt goodly glorious to have returned in spirit to Spencer House.
After having overslept by a hair, it was a mad dash by Underground and taxi make it by mere minutes to Royal Albert Hall. One of my favourite concert halls, any show would do.
Ah nothing beats a good old nostalgic adventure.
Interior of Royal Albert Hall.
Intermission from the stalls at Royal Albert Hall.
You cannot beat a room full of love and wonderment. Truly spectacular. Of course, it goes without saying that Merlin was wild about Jim Henson, George Lucas and Steven Spielberg. This was a glorious way to have capped off a great trip and to remember the life of an extraordinarily phenomenal human being, Merlin.
And like that, the following day, I was returned to Toronto, my art-filled home and this most glorious photograph of the most magical fellow who made life truly a happening, for seven glorious, love-filled and magical years.
As ever, sweet dreams and thanks for your ongoing support.
Whilst Lucian Mann-Chomedy took in the pre-opera lecture, I sat on a bench in the middle of University Avenue, enjoying a rather exquisite four-cheese macaroni and cheese baked to perfection as I read a very good biography of Tudor matriarch, Margaret Beaufort. Before me was the glass palace to the city’s high arts, beautifully lit. There were no doubt in my mind that I was shortly going to be enjoying a beautiful night at the theatre.
Once inside, I got situated next to Lucian who chatted away in that way that scholar souls tend to drone on about all manner of data that others may find tedious at best but, for having a scholar task companion (Merlin), I have grown comfortably accustomed. Close by, a tall silver-haired man kept on admiring me, even none too discreetly making bodily contact as legs relaxed and splayed open wide; in years past, I would gladly have explored and indulged.
After having made the obligatory Instagram post, I turned off the phone as the house lights faded into nothingness and the magic was begun. Tchaikovsky, you say, how could one go wrong there. The curtain ascended and the most glorious lucid dream this side of the dreamtime then unfolded. The sparse set design courtesy of Michel Levin’s creative genius was both stark and beautiful. Just the right lighting and the desired mood readily effected.
Leaves leaves leaves everywhere, the lighting of which matched the set and costumes. Last week’s production lacked melody, apart from the fact that Tchaikovsky’s music was well-known, there was nothing to that soulless, dissonant affair that drew you in or proved memorable – save it was really god-awfully bad.
During intermission, I stepped outdoors into the cool autumn air to return a couple of calls and pre-order an Uber meal. On my return, Lucian rightly so remarked on what a changed vibe there was in the house to the week prior. Indeed, there was stillness that hung in the air after each aria before the house would break into applause.
The prince’s aria was especially sublime a performance. The familiarity of glorious Tchaikovsky music, melodies long associated with the world of dance were welcome in the world of opera as Alexander Pushkin’s vision was handsomely realised.
After intermission the stark scene was beautifully animated as chairs, costumes and dancing ruled during the ball scene. The ball scene was dominated by classic Tchaikovsky music that choreographers the past century have relished celebrating in dance.
In the final act, one of things that struck me was how void of emotion the opera, Hadrian, the week prior was. Watching Onegin’s love finally profess her love for him after all these years, yet, insisting that she had to carry on with her life, her comfortable life and not leave it all for the man who pined for her was truly captivating. Ahead of me, two rows, were a couple of ladies who during that duet looked at each other, one even wiped her eyes.
This duet totally captured the human condition; it was about love, passion, longing, loss and dashed dreams. We could all relate to it. The passion and emotion tugged at your heart centre. Last week, not only was the music the most irritatingly banal but there was emperor Hadrian seemingly love struck, yet there was never any passion and emotion in scenes between him and Antinous. If you had no clue that this was one of the greatest love stories in gay history, you could be forgiven in assuming that it was an emperor bereft at the loss of his only son and heir, leaving him without the will to carry on. There simply was no connection, between them and by extension the audience… no passion whatsoever. Regardless their homoerotic love, the opera failed to have aroused emotion, passion and thereby causing you to lose yourself and identify completely with Hadrian, Antinous… or both.
That’s what one goes to the theatre for. At curtain call, rather than jump up and flee the theatre horrified as last week, I shot to my feet, clapped and howled my face off. Everyone leaving the theatre was enrobed in warmth and had been inspired to believe anew in love… that’s what great art does. What a truly memorable night in the theatre, this beautiful, passionate opera is with great melodies to spirit you along, long after you headed out into the world in the cool autumnal night air.
As ever, dream with the greatest passion for it is a true love affair indulged with self each and every day. Love yourself with new abandon and push off and start flying because you really are a truly spectacular work of art. As ever, thanks for your ongoing support. I love you more than you know.
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