The Black Box.

He remarks upon my layers - I've put on too many clothes! I say -  " Let there be light"! I'm so used to our opening conversation always being about the dimness of his room! He asks me, am I not too warm? And I say -  "Well, I know that intellectually" And this remark causes great hilarity. He says ' You don't know it physically? ( I laugh)  You do know it physically but it doesn't matter! More laughter... He asks me what sort of conversation we are going to get today? Me -  "The airplane - I sort of needed to put it together. It sort of came to me in the early hours of the morning - in that time when things get put together - so I just thought I'd write. To put together the airplane  that keeps crashing. It's crashed how many times now? The first challenge was cannibalism  (This refers to the times - many times - he has used an airplane as a metaphor during our conversations) He -  "Oh that airplane" Me -  "So this...

I brought the fairy lights. Slender copper wire, and tiny, delicate white stars. He laughs, as I drape them gently over his bookcase... And then I'm giving him a card and his money in the card, and talking about how I feel I should offer him a white scarf in return for his teachings.. There is a poem, written in the card. It is the poem that I quote on the first page of my research project: Dust of Snow BY ROBERT FROST. The way a crow Shook down on me The dust of snow From a hemlock tree Has given my heart A change of mood And saved some part Of a day I had rued. He asks me why? -  Why offer a scarf? I say -  "Because that's how you do it, you offer a scarf to the teacher, and the money is in an envelope" I am  purposefully  missing out the obvious, that I'm treating him as a lama. We are talking about crows, I say " I remember being sat, on Glastonbury Tor, watching a crow. And there were onion rings - not the battered rings - crispy, like crisps! And this ...

 The door opens almost before I knock it! He -  "Hello, come in" He talks about heating, I mention the light. And the coffee is there, ready and waiting for me. I am assignment free for a day or two! The assignments make me feel as if I've been locked in a box, unable to think my own thoughts; that I don't know how I'd actually answer the assignments if I wasn't 'writing to pass'.  And to remedy this sense of being confined I talk about something I wrote for him last year. Me  -  "So we must still have been in lockdown, April last year? I remember saying something about ' Seven Sermons to the Dead '? And I wrote you the first one - and I did write another one - but I didn't read that second one to you. None of this makes sense" Foolishly I'm attempting now to describe a semi- shamanistic practice of 'riding' experiences . How feeling tones translate into image...I blame the pressure cooker effect of my assignments, I j...