More Than This There is Nothing

F is for FORGIVING, G is for GIVING and H is for HEALING and more than this, there is nothing.

Close your Eyes, Clear your Heart...CUT THE CORD.

I didn't die yesterday.

Instead I walked down the bridges with tears in my eyes the the words ot The Killers song in my head 'MY SIGN IS VITAL, MY HANDS ARE COLD' fragile, ebulient. I walked in to Waterstones next to Burger King. The alarm went off as I walked in. It happens every time, every where these days. Why is that?

I wondered if I wanted to read about Seth but I found myself in front of a shelf full of Ian M Banks novels, and remembered what I must have come for: I couldn't decode at first which cover I preferred but I decided and then it was in my hands. Of course, after all these years, I wanted to read it again, after all those years of watching Bladerunner as an 8 year old,a 10 year old, a 12 year old, 16 year old, 'I'M ON MY KNEES LOOKING FOR THE ANSWER...' - and DO ANDRODS DREAM OF ELECTRIC SHEEP?




I stepped outside, tears still coming. Was that when I stopped to look at the book of Scottish love poems, or was that the time before? I don't know. But I didn't die. I went outside and the cold wind hit me as I pulled on my hat and a dad called on his three year old girl to 'come on now'. She was lovely. 'WAVE GOODBYE, WISH ME WELL, YOU GOTTA LET ME GO...'




I started reading on the way home. It asked what I was thinking, the words to a song I had been singing all of that day: 'ARE WE HUMAN OR ARE WE DANCER?'


When I got home I wanted to meditate but instead i wrote about realising a peaceful Arab Palestinian leadership that accepts the existence of the state of Israel: 'It's too sad. If someone commits an atrocity, you don't commit one back. Where will you go with that? You kill my children, so I'll kill yours? NO. NO. You campaign in the spirit of peace and compassion and kindess. Peace has to break out to give life a chance. Before and after peace comes forgiveness. And that's an even bigger challenge. xx' 700 people reading. I didn't die.


I went to sleep. Thinking rest some, you'll be fresh at 5am. Tomorrow's a new day and you won't hurt. I lay in the dark. Feeling. Wondering. 'YOU GOT TO LET ME KNOW'.
I couldn't sleep. When I slept I dreamed vivid, lucid dreams that I can't remember all of, except for the extraordinary detail of something but I don't know what it was, and except for the light and colours and the memory that I was one of many, and I was the One.


I woke up Heavy. Crushed before I rose. 'PAY MY RESPECT TO GRACE AND VIRTUE'. Quick to get ready. Out of the house in under 10. How so ? 'GIVE MY REGARDS TO SOUL AND ROMANCE'. Maybe today I won't cry.






It was just too cold to meditate on the way in. I couldn't. I took the book out and I read some more, knowing every word as I came upon it, not knowing where the images were coming from. Surprised again when he told his neighbour about the sheep being electric - he told him, just like that! Wondering where he was going to find his andys to buy his horse, or his sheep or his ostrich. Knowing they are on their way. 'SEND MY CONDOLENCES TO GOOD'. He's not a killer, I thought. He's not a killer. I wasn't dead then. I was alive. Nearly there.


When I got there, I saw that the roof had collapsed. I wasn't underneath it. I was standing looking at it. I wasn't dead. I moved my things. We moved everything. And suits and hard hats came all day by the dozen and scratched their heads and made quiet phonecalls, almost all of them, saying 'It's really bad. Someone would have died. It would've been fatal.' One after another.





I sat and looked in at the room, from a new desk, with a different ceiling and sat, nearest to all of it, looking in, thinking I didn't die. I'm not dead. I'm alive.
I couldn't concentrate and I played the Magic Numbers and I played Yazoo and in the end I stopped and I found it, and I played it very loud and several times over:

'I DID MY BEST TO NOTICE WHEN THE CALL CAME UP THE LINE,
UP TO THE PLATFORM OF SURRENDED
I WAS BROUGHT BUT I WAS KIND
AND SOMETIMES I GET NERVOUS WHEN I SEE AN OPEN DOOR.
CLOSE YOUR EYES, CLEAR YOUR HEART...
CUT THE CORD'

It was all playing out behind me, I think, at least for a second.

The day closed. And I went home again, crying. Tears in my eyes. 'AND SO LONG TO DEVOTION, YOU TAUGHT ME EVERYTHING I KNOW.' I felt i might break. I felt strong. I felt the guy at the bus stop looking at me and when I looked back for second our eyes locked. I noticed he was handsome and I was the one who looked away.
I wasn't dead. I was alone. I wasn't alone. I was alive.

On the way home, I decided I won't read this stupid book. I closed my eyes but I couldn't clear my heart or cut the cord. Not still enough to hear anything, to know what I feel. How much time and space do I need? Speak to me, will you? Tell me. 'THERE IS NO MESSAGE WE'RE RECEIVING, LET ME KNOW IS YOUR HEART STILL BEATING'






" 'You shall kill only the killers', Mercer had told them in the year empathy boxes first appeared on Earth. And in Mercerism, as it evolved in to a full theology, the concept of The Killers had grown insidiously."

I wondered if I was making up words just so that Brandon Flowers and his band and my confusion about whether or not there is any meaning in anything that is around me would fit in to this book, or fit in somewhere in to the pages of this time.

I rubbed my eyes and carried on reading.

"Put another way a Mercerite was free to locate the nebulous presence of The Killers wherever he saw fit."

I knew what was happening at once. I didn't know a thing. I felt like I wanted to cry more, but I felt safe and still and protected.

"For Rick Deckard, an escaped humanoid robot, which had killed its master, which had been quipped with n intelligence greater than that of many human beings,w hich had no regard for animals, which posessed no abilitu to feel empathetic joy for another life form's success or grief for its defeat - that, for him, epitomized The Killers".

Oh.

No more tears.

I didn't die.





Yesterday I had promised to work late to complete a document about a gallery space for robotics, where we might stage exhibitions exploring humanoids dreaming. I sat and typed for 10 minutes when a strong voice said in my head 'GET UP AND GET OUT OF THIS ROOM.' I stopped and got up. Then I sat back down, confused. And within minutes the feeling 'GET OUT OF THIS ROOM NOW'. I got up, didn't switch my machine off, turned the lights off and left.

All day I had been listening to The Killers singing 'ARE WE HUMAN?' the words going round and round my head. Too many things for me to understand in my world. Too many tears in my eyes so many joys in my heart, how many secrets in my thoughts, all pure and wonderful and true and always immaterial. I walked down the Bridges feeling a crushed heart wondering why and the words going round and round and round. Brendan Flowers' voice all strong and shining, and quivering with wisdom and uncertainty.


Today when I went to work, the ceiling in the room I had been working in was on the floor. It had come crashing down. We were lucky to have not been present because it's possible we would have died.

After clearing what we had the strength to, I looked in to the room from my new desk and sat all afternoon with the view of the crashed ceiling out the corner of my eye. I got tired. I found The Killers. I played it loud and over and over and wondered about the book, about the gallery, about us, about him - where is he? What is this? What is any of this?

ARE WE HUMAN, OR ARE WE DANCER?



Who knows. I don't know anything.

Five hours later I made my way home. More tears in my eyes. Is this the longest goodbye ever? Is this possibly the happiest thing that could happen in my life, this ending? Is this for real? What is this? What would you have me learn from this? Where and how do I grow? How? Who grows? What is this? Am I really alone? What am I?
Where are you? 'WILL YOUR SYSTEM BE ALRIGHT, WHEN YOU DREAM OF HOME TONIGHT?'


Who are you Brendan Flowers from The Killers, I think? 28 years old and your songs full of everything I want to know. What do you know? Where does it all come from?

And there it is - of all the things to find -

"no ability to feel empathetic joy for another life form's success or grief for its defeat - that for him, epitomized The Killers".


The Killers, whose song I have been singing for 24 hours non stop, trying to understand how to make sense of my life of robotics exhibitions and research, of the Modern Girl's Guide to Spirituality, of super sensitivity to energy around me, of friendships, of Gaza, of theology and art, whose words have been helping the tears come and the tears pass.

Whose song I had played loud and over and over the first afternoon that I went back to work in 2009, the same day that later on the ceiling collapsed in the office from which i was told to 'GET OUT NOW'.

The Killers are in the book I bought that evening after losing it for many years, finding it to read again for the first time in an age. Maybe the ceiling collapsed whilst I was buying it, and hearing the words go around my head: 'WAVE GOODBYE, WISH ME WELL, YOU GOTTA LET ME GO.' Whilst I was busy not dying.

The Killers whose song I played loud and over again as I sat and looked at the rubble from my desk through the door of the offic next door.

WILL YOUR SYSTEM BE ALRIGHT?
WHEN YOU DREAM OF HOME TONIGHT?




I didn't understand anything. I couln't understand anything.

YOU GOT TO LET ME KNOW.





And then on the way home, in the pages of the book is written about The Killers.

What do I know?

I am human.
I am unique.
I am the One.
I am protected, guided, wanted.
I am loved.
I am alive.
I didn't die.
I am not alone.
I am never alone.





**********************



And sometimes I get nervous
When I see an open door
Close your eyes, clear your heart
Cut the cord

Are we human or are we dancer?
******************


My journey of love through time and space.

Only You

Yazoo Only You by Celtiemama