Waxtober 8

When I looked at today’s waxing, my first thought was – birth of a star. That came to mind in the split second before I looked at the shape on the left and felt like I was stood behind somebody watching this epic event… I remembered a time a few years ago when I was giving Reiki to a friend and I had a mind movie of travelling out through space, beyond all the planets, beyond the furthest reaches to sit at almost infinity, feeling minuscule… tiny, wondering without worry if I’d ever get back down to earth again… I was pretty happy sat there. The thought of being OK there, instantly returned me to planet earth, much like the clicking together of Dorothy’s heels. My friend, opening her eyes, looked at me and said – you know, it was the strangest thing… I was sat with you at the edge of the universe. Did you see it?

Maybe it’s all the rain of late but my mind switched the colour of the image to electric blues and I was up on the roof, listening to Roy Batty’s final speech in Bladerunner…

I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die.

Birth and death… Death and birth…

I remembered my first labour… A lengthy process of surreal timebending moments… The big round white clock high up on the wall… The hands seemingly skipping forwards hours, then other times hours felt to have passed and the hands barely budged… I remember leaving my body, floating high up near the ceiling and looking down on the scene… A room full of strangers talking in hushed and panicked tones… Being back in my body, being asked for consent to administer an epidural, maniacal laughter, me telling the consultant to get fucked and take his hands off of me! The bed covered in blood from my wrist and a bodged attempt to insert a cannula. More maniacal laughter as I pointed out the mess to another white coat. Look! Look what you’ve done to me! And now you want to put an enormous needle into my spine! No no no nooooooo… Would I make a promise to reconsider in one hour? Yes, if you get rid of this crowd! Crowd removed and me smiling to myself knowing my promise was meaningless as the whole show would be over in a few more minutes… A doctor explaining forceps delivery, setting up equipment then dropping his jaw in surprise to find that whilst his back had been momentarily turned, things had moved faster than him and the head was out…

That first of four experiences of giving birth and the O.B.E. removed my fear of death. Not that I’d opt for dying anytime soon… I figure that whatever it is that is the spark of life, is quiet happy to exist outside of the body… Soul? Self? It’s a lodger in a biological system but not dependent on it for survival…? Where does this spirit? Divine spark? go after the death of the body? I don’t know? The same place it was before the body was born? In fact birth seems a much weirder concept than death… Hmmm… I guess they’re both pretty much the same in that when the time comes the time comes…

So many questions… Just one more… Don’t you think it’s amusing that the word count for the time to die speech is 42?