This Corona’s for You!

mango treeb

On my return from a giddy trip to both Washington D.C. and New York City – which Merlin ever referred to as Babylon, I would dream this most exquisite of flying dreams.  Too, this dream of bucolic splendour occurred on the eve of that truly rhapsodic adage – previously shared herein – entitled: Won’t Take the A Train. 

At the time, I had decamped to Babylon – after having cut short a trip to Washington D.C. and having secured part of my art collection from a roué Russian boor who, after having attempted to con me out of my art with the offer of setting up a home together, then crawled into my ear, calling me the N-word and let me know that it simply wasn’t going to work between us; this on my return to Toronto from the latest trip down to be with him. 

Naturally, for good measure, he thanked me for the art… as he hissed his racially predatory bile in my fucking ear, my nostrils drew on a few quickened breaths as raptor-like this shrewd intellect of yours truly began rapaciously charming my way back for just one more visit.  Of course, he could have the art but we had after all planned on going to Kennedy Center and the wedding of a friend of his. 

He acquiesced… the damn fool.  Returned to Washington D.C., thank goodness he was into S&M because his neighbours were little bothered as tied and gagged, I took to him with leather strap wrapped tightly about my black custom gauntlet as opera blared through his 5ksqf condo.  After having riotously owned his ploughed under arse, I dragged him to the living room where whilst he remained crumpled, bound and gagged, I patiently removed my art from his previously naked walls, left the god awful gold frames on one, rather than both hooks, as previously, carefully wrapped the prints and placed them in the containers in which they had been transported from Toronto weeks earlier. 

As the music soared, I moved his bound body to the bathtub, slumped him inside, relieved my bladder in his face as he ever loved during regular play… this, though, was anything but regular play.  Truly enraged, as is the custom at such times, I said nothing whilst my eyes remained illegible beyond my shades.  After I was done fucking with him for having fucked with me – I deal with karma here and now; besides, who would want to meet this boor in any future life – I called a cab and went to Union Station.  Took another cab to the airport, changed my flight itinerary and made it to that glorious island like none that I knew whilst growing up in the Caribbean. 

As for the roué, I called his best friend and told him that he, perhaps, ought to go check in on him as I had been out in Dupont Circle and my amour fou – and his best friend – was not answering the phone.  Of course, we both knew that apart from S&M our drunken Russian regularly engaged in auto-erotic asphyxiation.  Since I had met someone at a bar in Dupont Circle, I shared that I intended to go home with him and, perhaps, he ought to go and look in on his best friend.  As expected, he readily agreed and hurried me off the line – to say nothing of permanently out of my life. 

That done, I hung up the payphone at the American Airlines lounge at the airport, boarded my flight and as the plane roared down the runway, the one music I always listen to on takeoff, Jessye Norman gloriously roared whilst singing Richard Strauss’ Four Last Songs. 

Lids languorously collapsed shut as the memory and thought of what should never have progressed beyond a one-night stand drifted away.  Seriously, where would have been the fun of having to pass my life time-wasting with an ill-equipped man of less than five inches… quelle fuck-all joie ça! 

So there was I returned to Babylon having secured MY art.  I then had to prevail on one of Merlin’s oldest friends – a Toronto WASP Brahmin with a penchant for being a classist boor – to say nothing of bore… god who on Avenue Foch knows or cares about these people?  At the time, my other lover, Manhattan cabaret singer, Frans Bloem was out of town and working at his bread-and-butter gig. 

As I was not prepared to pass an evening with Carl Leroiderien, Merlin’s friend, being socially snide and all that transparent silliness, I got up in a pair of high heels, hot pants and tied my shoulder length permed hair in a ponytail and went crawling further south into the Village and ended up dancing at the Stonewall Inn which was recently made a national monument by President Barack H. Obama. 

Of course, whilst I shook arse in my high heels, I had some big-handed, intensely beautiful-eyed Canadian lawyer from Montréal end up bump and grinding against me.  Soon enough, back at his hotel, I discovered there was reward in having recovered my art and not having settled for trifling fare – my Italian stallion proved a girthsome ten inches of delightfulness. 

More than all that, the tree you see accompanying this exquisite flying dream, I planted after having returned to Nevis for my 7th birthday on August 2, 1967.  My mother, Harella da Braga, knew that seven was my favourite number and asked what I would like for my birthday.  As I had relocated from Nevis to St. Kitts at all of 7 months old, there simply was no other gift that could do it for me.  The day trip to Nevis was the most lucidly awakened dream this side of the dreamtime had – at least to that point in my young exciting life.   

The following summer, my mother who was as cold and emotionally remote as can be imaged, came to the door in that photo of the house we then lived in – after having been unceremoniously excommunicated from the Pilgrim Church down the street – and presented me with a lone large mango.   Naturally, as the lastborn of six children, getting a whole of anything – let alone a mango – was simply unheard of. 

However, the enigmatic Harella shared – after I had scrambled down from the genip tree where I daily retreated to take naps, dream and imagine myself on fantastic voyages and sometimes, though, rarely read – that the mango was from Nevis and she knew how much Nevis meant to me.  I was floored by the gesture. 

So whilst I sat making love to the ‘Nevis’ mango, my adorable sister, Pandora edged down onto third to last step to quietly sit – just one behind me – and asked for a bite or two.  Ever precocious, without missing a beat, I assured her that she could have as many mangoes as she wished of the tree that, in time, the half-exposed seed of the fruit that I thoroughly relished would yet bare. 

Always a man of my word, I then promptly planted the seed and – never, of course, having afforded my sister a single bite – erected a flower garden about it.  I made sure to plant it outside my bedroom window so that each day, I would be greeted by its burgeoning beauty on throwing open the bedroom window. 

Life is about giving – giving of self.  I have never tasted a mango from that tree.  The last time that I returned to St. Kitts – 1993 at least whilst the tree yet lived; it was gone in 2002, I am simply too eccentric and too much an off-islander to ever return there – the tree was promptly felled on my departure.  The locals, as human society can ever be expected to react to anything remotely outré, decided that my being long-haired, a ballet dancer, in riding boots and multiple bracelets on each arm was too gross an affront. 

Pandora did have many mangoes from that tree and I was always proud on my first return to St. Kitts in 1989 when Nicole McHugh (6th mature sage) said that she made sure that the tree was protected as it had been planted by myself and she always hoped that I would return one day and see what I had accomplished… indeed. 

There comes a point where high heels, riding boots, long hair and all that run their course.  More than that, I will damn well not go putting myself in harm’s way amongst persons who would just as readily dispense with the threat of my outréness as they did a perfectly beautiful and innocent mango tree. 

That aside, this dream and the corona experienced therein could never have been perceived and experienced had I never planted the seed of that Nevis mango.  This photograph remains my most prized possession… and with good reason. 

The dream was dreamt on Thursday, July 8, 1993 whilst the Moon then grooved its benign waning beauteousness through Pisces and conversely my tenth house, conjunct the cusp of which is my retrograde Chiron which opposes Pluto in the fourth and simultaneously squares both Luna in the seventh and Mars in the first conjunct the ascendant… yes, I can be operatically combative when provoked, though, I have much mellowed of late – fuck it, life’s too short to be doing battle chaque fois… partout… 

Goodness, it’s been awhile since I have taken the time to express my gratitude at your continued patronage.  Too, it gives me no end of pleasure to be of inspiration and wish that you will ever take the time to push off, start flying and make as sweet as that Nevis mango your every dream.  I love you more! 

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At night, in this the first dream, I walked towards Cleverly Hill, Sandy Point, St. Kitts in the streets of The Alley.  There were some guys sitting along the roadside who seemed, perhaps, Italian, Lebanese or Syrian.

They might well have been light-skinned Blacks.  Four of them in all, they wore white t-shirts with different-coloured shorts.

One wore red shorts, another black, one white and the other a blue pair.  I was more connected to the one wearing the red shorts.

They were excitable guys who drew my attention to the large screen, high definition TV that sat just inside the window of Rosita Gould’s old green house.  I could hardly make things out but the action seemed to be occurring in liquid slow-motion.

A young couple were very intimately making love; there were lots of extreme close-ups here.  The guys were very excited by all this, of course, as they sat across the street from the house.

As they hung out liming away, they were closer towards the large drain that dissects the main road.  There was a crumbling wall; the foundation was the remnants of an old house which was long-ago abandoned.

They were commenting on the fact that Hesketh Gould Jr., whilst fucking a woman, was in the house looking at porno.  I couldn’t quite figure out who the woman was supposed to have been.

Going over towards them, I began checking out the guys and found them rather attractive.  They all had rather light-coloured alluring eyes.

Certainly, there in Sandy Point, it was unusual to see such light-coloured eyes.  The one in the red shorts was the definite ringleader.

I approached him and openly groped him.  So bold and uncompromising was I, he could have done nothing but surrender to my forthrightness.

Of course, he was sporting a rock solid hard-on.  Relaxing him further, I then began caressing him gently on his right shoulder.

I looked at him rather lovingly and sweetly.  He surrendered; sweet smiling eyes complemented his colouring as he blushed.

Though these were not energies that he was accustomed to experiencing, I telepathically told him not to be afraid whilst the others remained perfectly arrested by our interactions.  I casually suggested that, perhaps, we could go off somewhere and be alone.

He replied that he and the guys were actually about to head off somewhere.  After having looked at his buddies for a bit, he then offered me to join them.

We ended up in the lobby of what seemed a cinema.  In order to check out the movies, down a flight of stairs we had to go.

Naturally, since being in the dark side-by-side could only lead to greater intimacy, I was all for the experience.  Whilst in the lobby, it was quite busy with lots of Blacks everywhere.

Different group settings of tables were scattered about one section of the lobby.  There were several concession stands about the place.

The usher, a teenaged Black guy, wanted to know where my ticket was.  I told him that my party had the tickets and had gone ahead and that I had come out to get something from the concession stands.

They had actually gone ahead of me and at no time had I seen them show any tickets.  Not that I didn’t have the ticket stub to show but I really didn’t feel like being messed with by anybody.

Showing my legendary impatience, through and through, I got confrontational with him.  He wore a company suit as part of his uniform.

The confrontation occurred at the half-flight down’s landing.  One had had to turn to the right to go down another semi-flight and to the cinemas.

He stubbornly refused to let me go any further or, for that matter, to go call the guys.  Finally, I got pissed off so headed back up the stairs to the lobby and stormed out of there.

When I left the theatre, I became aware of a group of guys close by who were intent on chasing me.  There was no way that I intended to be party to any such scenario.

Looking at them, I said, “No, no, no.  You are not going to.”

With that, I chose to rise above all this and decided to start flying.  Pushing off, I began flying quite slowly.

Nice and peaceful, I thoroughly enjoyed myself whilst in flight.  Rising higher, I grew dissatisfied with my speed and so willed myself to progress much faster.

Going alongside the road, however, I did keep close to the trees.  I always seemed to have problems willing myself to fly higher or lower.

At certain times, it proved problematic when trying to negotiate the branches.  There were times, when it seemed that I would even crash into some of the branches.

Then I reasoned, “Hey there, now Arvin.  Wait a minute now.

“This is a dream and you can do more than fly.  You can make your body even more malleable.”

With that, I upped my vibration and began progressing ahead.  When I came to the next thicket of branches, I effortlessly moved through the branches and leaves without being obstructed by their solidity.

In short, to the point where I became light itself, I had intensified my vibration.  This enabled me to pass through everything without the slightest discomfiture to my body.

In order to have to negotiate safe passage, through the unobstructed air, no longer did I have to go up or down.  Regardless its vibrational density, I had become at one with the light which permeated everything.

I intuitively knew that everything’s vibration is imbued with light, as per the subject’s light properties, which allows it to be a perceived entity.  Becoming pure light enables one to pass unhindered through the filter of all matter.

Therefore, to get through denser matter, one would simply have to will one’s light body at a faster speed so as to continue progressing at undiminished accelerated speeds.  To have attained this degree of focus afforded me even greater expansiveness of spirit than for being in flight.

Next to the weighty confines of being bipedal and earthbound, flight itself had already proven fairly limitless.  Thus, being focussed in the light body proved quite a wonderful experience.

Pushing ahead, I willed myself to fly even faster… soar even higher.  At this point, even if others were on the ground, they would not have been able to see me.

Still following the road, I saw way below a six or seven-year-old White boy playing in the streets.  He did see me, much to my surprise, and came running down the road after me.

He was so excited at the sight of me.  Certainly, it was not as if I was dangerous for being Black and in flight.

The road had at one point veered off to the left, then down a steep incline, into an open expansive valley.  At times, the road was earthen but on the whole it was a paved affair.

Where the road fell down into the valley, I began having problems because I kept on looking down below me to get my bearings.  Part of my problem was experiencing fears, for being that high up, whilst in flight.

There was this sudden apprehension that left me feeling that there ought to have been branches close by; so that, if need be, I could readily grab ahold.  Fears of losing focus and falling from the sky began taking form and assuming a life of their own.

I think that much of the reason for experiencing problems was the fact that I had been of the impression that for making myself light, vibrationally, I could not be perceived.  So that when the young White guy in the road below had seen me, this left my confidence as to what I had been up to understandably shaken.

Before becoming fearful, there had been a point when I had soared high above the treetops.  At those heights, it was fairly obvious that there was a corona of energy that towered up semi-spherically above the collective crowns of the treetops.

Though not perceived, it was raw pure energy which was distinctive.  Energy it was which fed my own light body’s energies.

The really beautiful part of all this is that, in the process of becoming light-energied, I was able to leave tendrils of my light energies whilst moving through space.  Everything, with which I came in contact, also left a residue of its light energies mixed with my own light energies.

In the true sense of the word, this was about becoming one with everything.  Beingness, that state of total acceptance – wherein one is at complete oneness with all nature… all life – I had clearly achieved.

A thoroughly uplifting experience this was.  Becoming infused with aspects of the trees’ collective life-force was akin to the experience on Boxing Day 1972III.

All in all, it was a healing experience.  What alas could be more rejuvenating and uplifting than, my trusted familiars, arboreals?

A very energising experience this proved.  In the final analysis, I was able to recover and not become weighed down in negative vortices of fear based – fear it was which was based on the notion that I couldn’t will myself to stay aloft.

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© 2013-2023 Arvin da Brgha.  All Rights Reserved.

Long May You Continue to Reign!

queen-elizabeth-ii-7

Here’s to the most remarkably accomplished Mature-souled Slave in the modern era.  Brava!  Well done indeed…  I remember long ago during childhood, all of St. Kitts was scrubbed and excited.  There was bunting everywhere and it seemed almost like Christmas time which would, after Boxing Day, bleed into Carnival – a time of laughter, dancing, fun and excitement.

Elizabeth by Freud

There in the shadow of Brimstone Hill Fortress, on another beautiful, sunny West Indian day, HM Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh drove past headed north through the lone street of Sandy Point, St. Kitts.  I was on the east side of the road, across from the playing field down which only two days earlier, I had the honour of slipping and falling into the large open sewer drain from Pogson Hospital where caterpillars were a welcome sight on its old growth of magnolia trees.  My mother, Harella, a teacher in the school that I attended, promptly had me take off my favourite pair of shorts and had them hung out to dry.

Elizabeth sergei pavlenko

Never mind that I had been wearing no such thing as underwear; thus, I had to endure an eternity of two days with every little girl in the school chasing after me because there was I with my bits hanging out whilst wearing a shirt that could hardly make it down to my sexy belly button.  I got a good glimpse of HM Queen Elizabeth II as she drove past, waving and looking out and to my side of the road no less.

Rupert Alexander's portrait of HM The Queen (sml).jpg
Rupert Alexander’s portrait of HM The Queen (sml).jpg

The moment was brief, as little union jacks excitedly waved and everyone boisterously cheered.  Just like that… she was gone.  I was so grateful for the queen having visited to mark the independence of St. Kitts, Nevis and Anguilla as they entered statehood.  Her visit had stealthily eclipsed my shame at  having been chased about the Sandy Point recreation grounds being teased by every girl… to say nothing of boy.

ER

After her majesty drove past, as the excitement of the moment wore on, the gaggle of similar-aged boys (6-8 years old) with whom I stood waving and cheering made our move.  This was a good enough excuse to dash up the lane and into the sugar cane fields where more long, hot and passionate moments of intercrural play was accompanied by whispered quickened breaths and proclamations of love – after all among us seven boys there was one who, though dumb as all fuck, proved my initiation into that most obsessive of fraternities – size queendom.  Older souls are not born innocent…

Elizabeth Regina

Here’s to Elizabeth Regina… Indeed, it has been good to be incarnate in this the second Elizabethan Age and a glorious one it has been.  Like Nelson Mandela, this remarkable human being inspires ready admiration, respect and her centred nobility of spirit in truly inspiring…

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Credit: HM, Queen Elizabeth II,

HM Queen Elizabeth II, Lucian Freud

HM Queen Elizabeth II, Sergei Pavlenko

HM Queen Elizabeth II, Rupert Alexander

HM Queen Elizabeth II, Andy Warhol

HM Queen Elizabeth II, Ralph Heimans

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© 2013-2023 Arvin da Brgha.  All Rights Reserved.

Penetrating the Astral Veil.

maasai

The dream occurred, on Thursday, September 12, 1996, whilst the Moon transited both Virgo and my fourth house.

Definitely this dream, without a doubt, was set on the astral plane.  Whilst in a large house, Harella and Pandora were there.  It was night time out.  Pandora was aggressively trying to have a current lover marry her.  It struck me, in fact, as being a bit desperate.

I took my leave from the house going outside.  There, I squatted on a rock and then threw my right leg behind me.  The look and feel was very à la Martha Graham.

The rock was quite large.  In what seemed to be a park, lots of beautiful tall trees towered all around me.  Lots of large rocks were beautifully placed about the rambling grounds.

Whilst in the partially-open, Martha Graham fourth position, I did lyrical port de bras with the right leg extended in the rear.  Lunging forwards, as though I were rubber-backed, I then reached backwards with my head almost resting on the rear leg.

In the front, the rock sloped down before me.  As a result, this did not give my front leg much purchase.  Once, whilst in the midst of another port de bras en dehors, I had lost my footing and began slipping forward down the rock.

For feeling as elevated of spirit as I was, I simply pushed off the rock and took my lyricism to its higher octave.  I was flying!  Knowing full well that I was on the astral plane, there could have been no better celebration than this.

Though low-level flight, it was still the same sweet languorous movement as when enjoying the port de bras.  On swooping down out of the air, I flew mere inches off the verdant zingy grass.

Reaching upwards, I brought my arms up in an opening fifth position which then splayed outwards to second position.  This swept my body upwards as my arms were stretched out, much like wings, with the wrists splayed back a bit to the rear.

This, of course, created greater aerodynamic ease as well as exquisite aesthetics.  Legs together, feet perfectly pointed, I moved through the air like some glorious dragonfly in flight.

More than that, I had a sense of being an exotic bird of paradise with a long tail.  Immediately, this brought back images of my first flying dream set in that Amazon aviary in October 1966 – whilst I effortlessly fell from imaginings into lucid dreaming when ensconced in the favourite forking branch of the genip tree, my familiar, in Crab Hill, Sandy Point, St. Kitts.

Whilst staying in that position, I was able to effortlessly fly.  From time to time, I flapped my arms much like a crane’s majestic wings.  Swooping around to the left, I flew in an arc, returning to where I had taken off.

Considerably higher in the air, at this point, I could see the rock way below.  The rock was beautiful with an intense vibration.  The trees below formed a grid of vibrant, powerful negative-ioned energies.

I could readily discern the wind currents based, in fact, on the way the crowns of the trees were being swept about.  The majestic trees lyrically swayed with abandon.

Swooping further down, I flew down into the valley beyond the rock.  By simply arching my back, I was able to soar back up into the air.

My head I arched upwards and back to the right, in a flying port de bras, which took me higher and to the right.  This was the most gloriously liberating experience imaginable.

To help with the lift, I raised the left arm a bit.  This further took the body, up and around, in a sweeping arch.  Greatly inspired, I droned, besotted by the magic I creatively weaved,

“This is so abso-fucking-god-damn-assed-lutely beautiful…”

With that, I roared with laughter enjoying the abandon of spirit that I felt.  Though not as if in slow-motion, my flight was rather slow.  My movements were birdlike and possessed of a gracefulness that was truly rare.

Unlike that initial flying dream, set in the Amazon aviary in October 1966, there were no birds about to have inspired my splendid unfoldment of spirit – but it sure was sublime.

The trees looked not unlike American elm trees rather than evergreens local to the Canadian West Coast.  There were, in fact, no evergreens anywhere to be seen.

Flying away, I swooped up again.  Now I was soaring even higher.  At that, I then dove down, with swift precision that took me below the crowns of the trees.  Now I was about forty feet off the ground.

At this level, I went flying into the thick cover of the stand of trees that stood closest to the rock on which it had all started.  Most of the treetops were higher than I was at this point.

Whilst I flew, I simultaneously became aware of both my sleeping body and my further expanded, awakened consciousness.  At this point, extrasensory perception ascended to a higher octave and extended the limits of the already expansive experience. 

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fpDream one.  Simultaneously, I was lying in the house with Harella and Pandora.  We were on the bed in the girls’ bedroom in the Crab Hill, Sandy Point, St. Kitts house.

Again, as I lay there, I was immediately reminded of the experiences on Boxing Day, 1972.  Once more, I felt as dissociative as when having the OBE: out-of-body experience, into the massive greenhouse of my genip tree familiar.

As I laid there on the bed, it seemed as if my feet were placed higher than my head.  I was, however, not overly concerned.  Pandora, much as she had on Boxing Day ’72, entered the room walking past me.

She looked at me because I laid there loudly snoring which, in the dreamtime, was strange.  I decided against awakening as I did not want to have to interrupt my parallel dreaming wherein I was blissing out whilst in flight.

I had no intentions of focussing on my snoring for it just might have awakened me.  I assured myself that it was okay to be snoring; it did not mean that I was in any danger.

At that point, I knew that I was definitely astral projecting.  When I became refocussed in the snoring body, I then recalled my astral self.  It was a true joy to feel my body fidget as my astral self resettled into its familiar berth.

Feeling confident and cocky, I decided to have another stab at astral projecting.  I wanted to fly… to soar again.  Being liberated was much too wonderful to have not further explored.

Keenly focussed, I again began astral projecting.  This time, as I began the cicada-like process of leaving the shell of my sleeping, still snoring body, I looked down at my body.

To my amazement I saw the astral self’s cord.  It looked as if an illumined string of dental floss.  However, this was a bit thicker.  It was actually a series of beads that were as if strung together by an intense, though soft, white light – a most luminously nacreous string of tiny, light-emanating pearls.

The cord was attached to the body between the belly button and the solar plexus chakras.  That part of my body felt expanded and wide-open.  On both bodies, the cord was attached at the same points.

I chose not to focus overlong on the deeply somnambulant body below me on the bed.

Dream onex.  Tumbling over on myself, I was now flying on my back.  Slowly flying through the house, I was – for astral projecting – able to know what was coming up ahead.

Here, in this expansive state, my spatial awareness was much enhanced.  I moved headfirst and not feet-first.  Moving through the house, I headed towards the kitchen knowing that Harella was there cooking.

On entering, Harella turned around and looked up at me as I slowly flew through the room over her head.  Surprised at the sight of me she said in a thick Nevisian accent,

“Buh aryu looka trouble ya t’nite.  Boyh ah weh y’ar go so?”

I paid her no mind and pretended to be asleep – I was after all lying on my back.  The sink was by a large window that was framed by natural, exposed wooden beams.

Harella, however, was not standing by the sink.  There were a few flowers on the windowsill.  On moving towards the pane of glass, I told myself not to worry about striking it.

With that I began increasing my vibration such that my projected astral self became a body of intense white light.  Effortlessly, at the same rate of slow flight, I travelled through the thick pane of glass.

Thrilled at my accomplishment, I devilishly laughed enjoying myself.  This was just as thrilling as that sublime dream encounter with Merlin, when he passed me the Sunday New York Times whilst at a café, where we had sat at a deuce having brunch on a glorious, sunny Sunday morning.

*That particular dream was had, on Wednesday, December 1, 1993.  END.

With that, I was outside in the dark whilst still in flight.  The window looked out to a ravine way below.  The drop below was considerable, with me in flight, high above the valley way below.

Adjusting, I tumbled over onto my stomach in order that I might meet the demands of flight at such heights.

Using sweeping motions of the arms, again much like a bird, I began flying.  Such utter abandon it was, too.  I was so pleased that I had decided to leave my body and have another round of astral projection.

I flew as if a bird of prey and the feeling was positively delightful.  After awhile, I returned indoors but soon enough decided to again go outdoors.  All I wanted to do, once more, was to pass through the thick pane of glass in the kitchen.

Again, I upped my vibrational frequency and allowed my body to effortlessly move through the thick pane of glass.  It was as though I were passing through the Chinese glass-beaded curtain, that Merlin so loved, which hung in the door to our 20 Amelia Street, Cabbagetown Toronto home’s bedroom.  Once again, I was flying facedown above the ravine.

With great speeds, I began flying; this time swooping down lower into the depths of the ravine, I further explored whilst in flight.  The thrill of speeding past the vibration of the treetops below me was exhilarating.

*It had much the same effect as, when joining Merlin on that magic carpet-like transport, in the august dreams of July 9, 1993.  END.

Soon, I arrived at a village which seemed as if somewhere in Africa.  Since I knew that I definitely was on the astral plane, I sought to explore the environs by alighting in the middle of a narrow street.

Straight away, I kept up a leisurely pace when moving through the village and drinking in everything about me.  There was a lot of lush vegetation, all around, wherever you looked.

As I came on a bend in the earthen street, it was nighttime here.  There I saw some of the villagers in the most colourful African costumes imaginable.  These were the most exquisitely dark-skinned Blacks that I had ever seen.

Yet, there was something about these Blacks that was different to their waking-state human counterparts.  They were so very exciting to be around that they simply radiated life and light energies itself.

I was thrilled to have encountered them.  They were playing the music which so richly informed my childhood.  This was the music of ‘Sports’ and foreday morning at Christmas time whilst growing up in Sandy Point, St. Kitts.

One of the instruments that they played was heavy-looking brass cymbals.  They banged them with great gusto.  As well, there were myriad drums on which they beat a frenzy that was truly admirable.

This was truly the most frig-all glorious music heard in too long.  There was no other way to have responded to this music than to have danced.  Here I moved as if truly possessed.

As though alighting into my body to vicariously experience the joy of being ensouled in a body anew, I truly felt that I was being channelled by a host of spirits.

Indeed, my very soul itself was moving in on the cicada-like shell of my projected astral self.  I threw my head back and howled with delight at being so richly empowered.

For the most part, these regal Blacks seemed to be troubadours who were part of a travelling circus.  There were jugglers and acrobats.  The cymbal players were low to the ground and in back of them were the drummers, on a float, where they were some four levels high.

They were quite a sight to see.  Yet, I still couldn’t quite fathom what it was about them that proved somewhat slightly different.  Then when one of the cymbal players took off his instrument, I noticed that their arms were differently proportioned to humans’.

Basically, there were less than three inches between their elbows and their wrists.  The distance from the elbows to the shoulders was the same as for a human from wrist to shoulder.  Indeed, we were clearly not in Kansas anymore…

This was a very energetic, high-frequencied race of Blacks.  Though small in stature, they were not pygmies.  However, goodness, this race of Blacks had such incredible presence to them.

Theirs were the most beautiful smiling eyes imaginable.  The closest one could think of is the beauty of the eyes of Blacks from Fiji – whom racially obsessed foreigners would like to believe are not Black.  Absurd!

For not having been enslaved and subjected to the prevailing Western, absurdist, racially predatory animus, Fijians are a people whose spirits were not broken.  These astral beings were a wonderful people whose spirit had not similarly been broken.

These astral plane Blacks were a people possessed of the most beautiful-sounding laughter.  It simply tickled the soul to hear these people laugh.  These people were very serious about their music; it was on the order of high spiritual contemplation.

At one point, they arrived at a spot where they set up what looked like a drum that was made from metal.  Cone-shaped, it looked like an oversized toy top with four layers of circular steel which were separated by two or three inches.

Naturally, the smallest circle of steel was at the narrow bottom of the instrument.  Once set up, they began directing energy from the other drums which conversely caused the large metallic drum to spin.

As the top-like drum spun, the winds passing through it created a sound that was akin to an engine with a high-pitched whir.  As the sound progressed, the pitch kept on rising higher and higher whilst soaring to stratospheric octaves.

I was about to take my leave of them, on discovering their outré-proportioned bodies, when the sound of the set-up drum pierced through me.  So, with that, I turned around and headed back to investigate their ritual.

There, on the street, I saw the halved corpse of a White male.  Dark-haired and square-jawed, he was not remotely familiar.  I then noticed that, as he lay there, there were tiny lights along his jaw line.

So right away, I realised that he was an automaton and not someone who had been killed in a freakish accident.  I couldn’t quite figure out what was going on here.  I thought, perhaps, that this was some sort of strange, astral plane voodoo doll.

Of course, it more than likely wasn’t.  Obviously, they were engaged in some form of channelling and these accoutrements were what they used.  Thus they were able to affect communication with other planes and dimensions.

Now the musicians came off their float and formed a circle about the whirring, rotating metallic drum.  There, they beat a frenzy like there was no tomorrow.  Still, their playing could not drown out the high-pitched whir of the massive drum-like instrument.

It seemed as though their playing aided it to soar to even high planes of intensity than before.  I couldn’t believe that such sounds were possible.  However, its intense pitch was clearly able to affect the manifestation of something or other.

At this point, the rest of the villagers began flocking to the centre of the village.  They gathered about the circle of drummers as they ecstatically performed.  In a bid to get a good view of things, as events unfolded in their village, they were excitedly rushing in.

They struck me as being on the verge of expecting something momentous.  They were familiar with this ritual; it would seem that this had something to do with death.  This process revealed who had recently died or, more to the point, who was about to die.

Many of the villagers, who had rushed in, were villagers from Crab Hill, Sandy Point, St. Kitts.  Among them, I saw Maudie Hazel and several others from my childhood who looked much as they did then.

I figured too that most of these persons had already passed on in the waking state and, therefore, were currently astral plane habitués.  As someone from Sandy Point was about to die, this ritual was being carried out.

Here on the astral plane, this was how the announcement of an arrival was made.  Thus the predeceased would rush in, as it were, to find out who was about to crossover.

Too, they were there to serve as a welcome committee and help the newly returned habitués become adjusted.  Obviously, for some, there needed to be some getting used to being dead and returned to the astral plane.  The mood here was incredibly celebratory.

The new habitué was thrown an energetic party where the music was that of the most glorious time in the village – Jouvé morning.  Many were quite eager to meet old friends and get them oriented to their new realm of beingness.  It was all great fun.

What was a big item here was that the predeceased villagers were always eager to let the newcomers know who had killed whom, in some unsolved and highly-suspect, mysterious death or murder.

It was so akin to the richness of emotionality which village life in Crab Hill had been during my childhood.  It was great to be here.

Maudie Hazel was a real noisy, gossiping firebrand.  She wore a soiled white frock; it looked as if it had been her favourite, for years on end, when she was alive.

Looking as though she hadn’t done anything as momentous as died and left Crab Hill, her head was tied up in a kerchief.  She stood to my immediate left.

To have looked across to her strong warrior-spirited face caused me to well up with loving pride and laughter.  This woman was so lived-in and soulful that it nourished the very soul to have seen her – again.

Eventually, the steel drum came to a rousing climax.  At that, one heard a voice that sounded like a recording.  It was the voice of someone on their deathbed, giving their last words as they bade farewell to the world, before shutting down a life.

However, this was a recording that the person had made knowing that they were going to die soon.  To my way of thinking, it was clearly a suicide.  There was no mistaking the fact that it was David Templeman.

His voice was not unlike that of Pericles da Braga’s.  A very articulate and erudite register it was.  At the end of his speech, there was a succession of long, weary-sounding breaths which was customary of someone taking their last breaths before dying.

For all gathered, this was the most beautiful sound; they hung on to it and drew on heavy breaths themselves.  They were just as celebratory as if they were persons attending a birth – which, in essence, it was.  A rebirth it was, too, back to being an astral plane habitué.

By their pleasurable expressions, they were validating that it was death.  The return to the astral plane was a labour of sorts; it was being facilitated by others who had headed out on the journey earlier.

This, indeed, was quite the revolutionary discovery.  Needless to say, this left me wondering what exactly I was doing there.  There were no doubts in my mind that I had stumbled onto the astral plane.

These villagers were distinctly African in nature, even those who were familiar to me as being born in both St. Kitts and Nevis and whom I knew when growing up in Crab Hill.

Some were exceptionally long-limbed but possessed that unusual arrangement to their limbs that was decidedly not earthly human.  Long-legged too, they were all long-torsoed.  Their torsos were so long that they seemed as if possessed of more vertebrae than humans.

These people could dance with an electrifying magic that could, any day of the week, dance circles around Michael Jackson.  It was quite something to see this group of Blacks in another dimension.  Theirs was a very vibrant culture.

More than that, I was really keen to learn exactly how David Templeman had died or how he was going to die.  Either way, this ritual presaged his arrival onto the astral plane as arrivée, astral plane habitué.

The halved corpse that lay on the ground, which was clearly an automaton, was the channel that brought through the voice of David Templeman as he passed on.

There was a bit of chatter as a few astral plane habitués, who had lived in Crab Hill, were discussing exactly who David Templeman was.  It seemed that someone had not remembered who David was as the astral plane habitué had moved to America decades earlier.

Many of these Sandy Pointers, I did not myself recognise.  This I think was due to the fact that they had died when I was a child or long before I had even moved to St. Kitts from Nevis.

I must say that it was really good to have been around them.  It was all very interesting and made me feel as though I was in St. Kitts.  A thoroughly pleasurable interlude this was for me.

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Photo: Shamanic Maasai warrior.

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