LISTENING TO THE SILENCES

It was an extremely wet autumn, and the work of keeping a horse stabled at night was becoming very tedious. Gradually, over this and other activities, I found myself being 'needled'. Criticisms began to invade the previously harmonious exchanges. It is, indeed, very hard, in retrospect, to recreate those particular days, and to understand how it became possible for me to be dominated by an altogether different group (or the same group acting differently). Living alone, enveloped in a foul early winter, everything outside soaking and muddy, it was fast heading for a 'bleak midwinter'. Certainly, and principally, the lack of association and the inability to put the events in perspective and discuss them with people living more varied lives completed the isolation. It was thus that I found myself being alternated in my mind between two groups - the one needling and critical, the other supportive and encouraging. (I discuss the strategies and ploys used to dominate and torment people later).

The two areas of attack were the religious practices and the horse. It is quite easy for religion to be used as a source of criticism and torment. Once one has undertaken to engage in intense practices and a highly moral life, the possibilities of being accused of backsliding and lack of devotion or compliance are endless, and need not be enlarged upon.
The way that the horse was used was interesting and quite unique. In Britain, the horse has a special place allegedly going back into early culture and worship. The linkage with the past nature/horse devotion was now being quoted at me as predating any modern religion, and which, without fail, should govern my treatment and care of my mare Bokhara. In reality, my care was very good, as my friends commented when later they had to take over, but because the newly introduced concepts of 'the old ways' were being cited, it was being demanded that the mare should be treated with an almost religious devotion, and that my management of her should be impeccable. This attitude was brought home forcibly to me in a way that, looking back, is reminiscent of attitudes and incidents from some of Grimm's Fairy Tales. If my mucking-out and remaking the bedding were of a high order, then the barrow load of dung and straw was as light as could be and was whisked along as if I had a host of helpers. If, however, I was skimpy in my work, it seemed that the barrow was filled with lead and that its progress was being actively resisted and my work impeded.

When one's family has fragmented, and there are no longer children at home around whom the celebrations of Christmas normally revolve, the ways in which it is observed away from the religious context are normally somewhat contrived. Thus, I found myself 'contriving' a merry Christmas but being pulled in several possible directions; no one else was actively contributing but all were relying upon me to 'provide'. My lack of commitment must have showed, for one by one the others found alternatives.

I am writing this over twenty years later. The sun is shining, the trees that were bare then are full of leaf and birds, the field that contained my mare is rich in grass awaiting mowing for hay and not the sea of mud and icy rime that it was then, and the mountains are hazy and cloud-shadowed not stark and snow topped. In spite of that, as I look out towards the mountains I have only to let my eyes go out of focus, and I can 'see' the reality from all those years ago, and even though I have pages of notes that I made soon afterwards, I do not need them, for every detail is as real as it was then, but now, fortunately, without the terror and torment that were building up. It may be wondered why I did not share with others at the time what I was experiencing, and ask for help. All I can say is that, exactly as I found later when I did need real help, - it is virtually impossible to convey or even hint at the reality of these events, just as many people, in broad daylight, cannot relate the torment and reality that were theirs at three o'clock earlier that morning.

Many times over these intervening years, I have retold my story to a variety of people in a variety of situations. What has remained with me after these various tellings has been the fact that almost no one has returned to the subject, asked supplementary questions, or followed through with any analysis, except for those in two groups. The first is the group of people who have had deep spiritual experiences of their own - they recognise and accept all that I say, and then there is nothing more to say, but only to empathise, with the understanding that can only come with shared personal experience. The second group is composed of one individual, one of the several Rogers amongst my friends. He used to come to stay for a few days at a time to talk and derive the healing that the house and environment provide. On one occasion, he harked back to his previous visit and what he had discerned within me, namely my anger, albeit unexpressed. In an effort to help Roger from insights derived from my own experience, I had recounted in detail all that I am writing in this and the next two sections. His response was to begin to analyse me to myself! He was very much 'into' Jung, and all the Jungian jargon came pouring out in the convoluted analysis of which only he amongst my friends was capable. In the 'let me be your counsellor' role in which I found myself, I could not let my anger manifest itself, but internally I was seething, and it must have showed; with his perception of it, I was able to take off the string that had been tying down the safety valve, and express myself.
Which really is me getting to the point of saying to you that if you are reading in a state of total disbelief or with the intention of 'doing a Roger' on me, there doesn't seem to be much point in your reading any further. What I am writing does not allow of any interpretation. It all happened, and in the manner and ways that I am describing. If you are reading with the intent of using what I am writing for the benefit of others, well 'welcome', be my friend; while I live I'll talk with you, enlarge, tell you all that you want to know. But now, stay with the narrative - things are getting really serious!

The final departure occurred three days before Christmas Day itself, a Saturday, and as I drove my last remaining visitor to the station yet more strange things began to happen. Making my way along narrow roads, I found my driving was being interfered with - at times my vision clouded spontaneously and I had to stop; on some corners I was forced to mis-steer and likewise had to stop to avoid crashing. At the station - well, you may have guessed - Saturday service; the next train was not the next train, but the one after that.
When I finally got home it was mid-evening, very dark, very cold, very damp, and there was still Bokhara to be seen to. First, I had to muck-out her loosebox, and here again I encountered the interference or help with the wheelbarrow. Looking back, I am reminded of one occasion when I was about thirteen. I had gone fishing in a small trout river several miles from my home, cycling there with my rod tied to the crossbar of the bike. When I reached the river, I had to leave the road and push the bike over some terrain resembling a links golf course. I had been joined by some lads whom I knew by sight, who lived locally and were about a year or two older. They helped me negotiate my bike over a railway line that I had to cross, and then I started to fish. I had hoped that they would go on their way, but no chance, and after a while, they got bored and started interfering with everything and behaving provocatively. Fishing was pointless and I packed up and decided to head across the mixed grass and sand to where it was possible that my parents had gone for a drive. My tormentors I had hoped to leave behind; some hope! They pushed against me, pushed against the bike, grabbed it from behind and stopped me from going forward, until, in desperation, I lashed out with my rod that I was carrying. That did it. I was set upon, harried and punched to the ground, continuing while I was lying there unable further to defend myself against the onslaught. Finally, they had their fill and left me a sobbing heap on the sand. It is amazing how the detail has come back, and how exactly it matches the interference of those harrying 'imps' of the wheelbarrow, and the reactions that they provoked in me and me in them.
Whatever, I finally got Bokhara installed and dried and fed, in the midst of what varied thoughts I cannot remember, although I have no doubt that I was being forced to concentrate upon aspects of my moral life, and my fitness for a life of improving spirituality. Let me again emphasise, there was nothing in my moral life, past or present, with which I could reproach myself to any significant extent, but somehow, everything was trawled, examined, and even the most minor peccadillo could, in my then state of mind, be made to seem to be an enormous 'sin'. Gradually, the whole thrust of the 'catechism' and analysis wound around the 'Christmas story', and subtly, and by allusion, around all past relationships with my parents. Any misunderstandings, any 'wish lists', were extracted within the 'Holy Family' context, as if my parents were near at hand and conscious of all that was transpiring. Yet again, the wheel turned and there was being stoked a feeling that I should go to the local church on Christmas Eve, but only to stand outside, not being fit to proceed to join the 'good' people inside. It all sounds so ludicrous as I write it down, and I do so solely to show how ones sense of proportion could be made to be so distorted as to accept such dominance as reality.
What next I remember, is going into the storeroom side of the stable to get some hay to fill the manger. Before I could start to cut the strings of the bale, I found myself forced down onto it on my knees, and made to stare downwards, but it was not to look at the assorted feed bags and twine that I would have expected to see. No, I looked into a void, but not a void. Picture the most drear, cold landscape of your imagination. I was in a narrow steep-sided valley, and it was grey, and cold. A white, snow covered landscape has some charm, but not this that I saw. The wind blown, snow blown terrain and scree was so grey and lifeless; not a plant grew, not a creature moved, not a bird flew, and it was soundless. And on my back was a great weight of ice, as if the whole of a glacier lay there, bearing me down. I was so utterly cold and alone, and I knew inside me that this could go on and on and on for ever. But in spite of that, I could muster the shadow of a wry smile, for I knew that this could in fact be a state that deliberately I had chosen, for, in essence, I was being shown what Hell could be. What I was seeing and feeling would be the equivalent of having once known and experienced the warmth of Divine love, and then of having deliberately rejected it, given it a derisive gesture, in full knowledge of what I was doing, and the remembrance of what I had lost by my rejection would be with me for eternity with no chance of recall.
I have no knowledge of how long my 'vision' lasted, though lasted it did sufficiently to have stayed with me unabated for over twenty years. Nevertheless, gradually the warmth returned and I was eased to my feet as my benumbed knees regained their function, and so, standing comfortably again, I turned and looked out over the half stable door. The clouds had cleared, and the sky was full of stars. So full of stars. And the reality of Christmas, and the unqualified unique love that it had brought with it into the world, swept over me.
It is impossible, and I will not even try to convey to you all of the sensations and reactions and emotions that engulfed me during this and the next day. Even now, when considering some of them, I only take a sideways look with half an eye, and I marvel that I could have become and been so embroiled in a situation that emotionally took me from feelings of deep and abiding love and commitment, to those of absolute despair and terror. I know and understand more now having lived with and thought much about the consequences, but then, then much was so incomprehensible, and yet it was all interwoven with the everyday functions of making meals, making the bed, doing what had to be done.
And so I did what had to be done during the following morning, a Sunday, and two days before Christmas Day. Whatever I did, it was completed by noon, and experiencing a total urge to escape from everything, I went to bed. But escape I did not. What a fertile ground is the mind; what a source of memory; memory that can be stirred and trawled by skilled spiritual inquisitors. The strange thing is, on reflection, that I did not question the right of this particular inquisitor who dominated the 'examination', for that is indeed, what had developed. And how strange it is, and awesome, to realise that everything is already known - everything that I had ever thought, had done was accessible - or was skilfully extracted. What a catechism followed! And all set by reflection within the Easter 'story'. For three hours I stayed, wide awake - held enthralled and being forced to confront everything.
It was only by conscious reflection sometime afterwards that I realised that I was being purged, stripped of any 'handholds' in my mind by means of which my composure or credibility could be undermined - just as a Greek wrestler of Classical times would oil his body and remove all hair to deprive any opponent of an anchorage for his grip. I am sorry that I cannot share with you what was being awakened within me - not awakened then for I was exhausted; the core of my being lay like a skinned animal and I was sore inside. The awakening came with time - the realisation of the actuality of the fundamental message and essence of the Christian faith, and the reality and individuality of the Holy Family. It is not that I do not want to share what I came to experience and know - I just find it impossible. To return to an earlier analogy - experiencing the summit of Mount Everest. One could go there with all of the sophisticated video and sound recording gear and give a detailed commentary, but never ever bring back one's own inner spellbinding thrill of experience, and of knowledge gained.