Finding Damo

The story of a man, his job, two cats and the meaning of success.

Archive for the month “February, 2015”

Finding Damo

this is inside my skull

My wife and I were having a lazy Sunday, lying in bed and chatting with each other, when she took my hand and concentrated.

“I just had a vision of what’s inside your mind,” she said. “I saw a huge volcano and surrounding it was the entire galaxy.”

This is my mindscape. No compartments, no little boxes, just the entire galaxy and the huge fiery volcano at the centre.

One of my goals has been to try and still my mind a little. Let the waters stop churning and the ripples cease. But when I sit still, thousands of ideas run through my brain; a new story idea, a snippet of a play that would look fantastic on stage, 3D models I want to bring to life and marketing ideas for Dwarves in Space. My mind doesn’t slow to that still point that apparently exists in some people.

The volcano in my mind is a deep rage that I try to keep in check. It is also the fire of creation, adding to the galaxy outside.

I wanted to try something.

“You held my right hand,” I said. “That’s not my dominant hand. That’s not the centre of me.” So she took my left hand in mine and I concentrated with all my mind on a forest – tall trees, peaceful and still. At the centre of that forest was a writing desk, where I could write in peace and quiet.

a peaceful forest

“Ok,” she said. “It’s spreading now. The volcano is still there, but now I can see more. There is mist and a giant forest at the base of the volcano.”

Mind. Blown.

The transfer of energies is a concept that I can quite easily get on board with. There is a heat that you feel when someone touches you. Energy transfer is simple science. I am fully willing to stretch that transfer to a type of mental energy, or spiritual energy that transfers as well. You can tell when you touch someone that doesn’t like you or doesn’t want to be touched, if you are in any way tuned in.

I find it hard to say “I don’t believe in that” about anything. You can’t just dismiss something because your world view doesn’t fit the ideas that someone else takes on board. Well, you can, but you shouldn’t. I wouldn’t stay home from work because my horoscope said that I was going to have a bad day, but I didn’t get my motorcycle license because a psychic told me the day before my test that if I got on a motorcycle I would die.

I have that tape somewhere. I’ll upload it when I’ve got a spare hour or two to cut it together.

Shereen told me more about my inner world.

glowy-me“I wandered in the forest and found a glowing figure standing there. Not scary, not mean, just suggesting that I shouldn’t be there and could I please leave. I could tell by its features that it was you, or an aspect of you. And then I was pulled backwards, lifted out of that space.”

“And finally, I found a room. A room made of clay, and inside it were a group of figures – the Mystics from the Dark Crystal. They were trapped inside the room, talking quietly to each other, but not allowed out. And when I saw them, they started to fade into the walls, disappearing into the clay. One of them had piercing blue eyes, which is how I knew that they were aspects of you as well. They were elements that weren’t ready to come out now.”

mystics

I know there’s a lot going on inside my head. It’s good in some ways, as it means that I’m never short of a creative outlet. But sometimes I miss the stillness that I know other people can find. I am also deathly afraid of what I might find if I let the Mystics out of the box, the glowing figure out of the forest. Even the thought of being that still makes my heart seize up. I don’t want to be self-reflective. I DO want to be self-reflective.

But how do you reflect on the whole galaxy at once?

Second-hand

The rest of the family will probably read this and call me a whinger. But I feel that as the oldest child, it is my divine right to own new clothes so that I can pass them down to my brother. I wasn’t allowed to see M rated films until I was 15. The trade-off is new clothes.

But no. Mum and Dad got all of my clothes from the Websdales, who had kids a bit older than I was.

*sigh*

But that’s not why I called this post second-hand.

lots of lovely booksIt’s all about books.

The highlight of any holiday for me has been going to a new town and finding their second-hand bookshop. Second-hand books are God’s gift to readers and the owners of these shops are angels in disguise. There is nothing as satisfying as the smell of thousands of musty old books stacked on top of each other. The dust shifts as you move through the store and the light is only barely good enough to see by. There are books stacked on top of books. Shelves with two layers of books. Staircases and hidden nooks with undiscovered piles of literary treasures.

I have a lot of new books. I have quite a number of e-books. But my bookshelves at home are made up primarily of books from the second-hand bookshop.

I’m pretty sure most of the Biggles books I read came from the second-hand bookstore. Almost all of my Stephen King collection. My Tom Holts and Dean Koontzs. There is a rush involved in searching a bookshelf and finding the last book in a series that you haven’t been able to find anywhere else.

Through The Looking GlassI’m writing this now because of an experience Shereen and I had in Belgrave on the weekend. We found a place called Through The Looking Glass. I went in because they had Uglies, Pretties and Specials by Scott Westerfeld in the window. So I ducked in to ask how much they were ($20 for all three – bloody marvelous). Inside, there was a lovely lady sitting in an incredibly comfortable-looking armchair, reading. I nodded and went to move into the shop to find the owner when she asked me if she could help.

The owner was sitting just inside the shop reading a book! I almost burst into tears realising that this was a possible career. Shereen and I chatted with her for a good twenty minutes, with me occasionally ducking off to explore. I forgot to ask her name, but I’m pretty sure from Facebook stalking the shop’s page that it is Robyn, so I’m going with that.

This is my ideal bookshop. There are boxes of books everywhere. It’s difficult to walk around. Finding books here is about exploration, and that is my perfect day.

You absolutely have to go and say hi, like the Facebook page and go buy some books. It’s like Nirvana. I was very impressed, as you might be able to tell.

moore booooksOK, if you can’t make it to Belgrave, here are some of the other places I have a special affinity with:

Flinders Books – the Flinders St store opposite the station. It was another squeezy, cosy store with more books than necessary. But now it’s dead, along with Kill City books that was owned by the same people. I’m so sad!

Book Now in Bendigo. I’m not sure how it is now, as I haven’t been there in a few years. But this was a lovely, multi-floored bookshop with staircases with metal railings. They always gave me a good price when I brought in a pile of books for sale.

Yarra Cottage Books in Warrandyte. A very friendly owner and a great children’s section. They also get in some very interesting rare volumes, including a multi-volume 1001 Arabian Nights which I desperately wanted but couldn’t afford.

I write because I read. I read mainly because of libraries (there’s another post) and second-hand bookstores.

Show them some love people! They’ll be around long after e-books have been made redundant by the New World Order and the end of the Digital Age.

To find the treasure that you seek, Behind the books just take a peek. Hidden treasures you will find When you take the time to look behind.

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