Today I learned of the death of a great friend, a woman of this City who was a mum, grand mum, teacher – and for me – a spiritual and cultural mentor that not only changed my life, but the lives of hundreds and probably thousands of people, by explaining ways to express ideas, and pass them on.

Only some teachers have this profound ability, and Claire was particularly gifted; she influenced her pupils, of all ages, in subtle and inspirational ways.  I must turn to The Tao to describe the way Claire operated as an educator:

Therefore, the master acts without doing anything, 
and teaches without saying anything.
Things arise and she lets them come;
things disappear and she lets them go.
She has but doesn’t possess,
acts but doesn’t expect.
When her work is done, she forgets it.
That is why it lasts forever.

I met Claire under the most bizarre circumstances, the kind of circumstances that compel one to respect destiny. I was living in Brunswick Square at the time, and a neighbour asked me to find a women’s writing group. I ended up in The Jubilee Library, looking at a hand-written card giving information about a group that met regularly just off the Old Steine. We went and the neighbour soon gave up; it was all about poetry… but for me that group was special… and Claire who ran it, changed my life.

With a core of about five or six writers, and a couple with enormous talent, I found that my life expanded; the group gave me creative and spiritual sustenance of a kind I never knew existed. Claire had the ability to bring out the very best in us all. Apart from her poetry, which was beautiful, I found the writing of Pauline Suett Barbieri and Rikki Hennessey particularly fine, and I read Rikki’s beautiful words to this day.

Every time we met, Claire would give us some homework — a poem to write about and we would read our stuff aloud, listen to Claire and compare and contrast. The subjects chosen were unusual… they varied from umbrellas to ‘the road to hell’. My output varied from blank verse to dreadful doggerel. Before I joined Claire’s group I had a real aversion to poetry. Today, I look at my library and see that there are more poetry books there than anything else, and all thanks to Claire. Not only that, I have just browsed my old ‘homework’ file on my computer and discovered that I wrote 154 poems under her gentle guidance… but 154 is nothing. Today I have an on-line library of over 100 funeral readings (all poems) and a massive library of poetry used for everything from weddings to Mayoral Council Meetings. Thank you, Claire.

Claire was a person with her own views, nearly all of which resonated with my own. When we met recently we bemoaned the current political scenario, and looked at it from many angles. She knew very well what she did and didn’t like; yet in the poetry group she had infinite patience with us if we found things difficult, helping the more anxious students by offering words of kindness, much to the irritation of some of us, who were much less patient. She was compassionate, insightful and always soft spoken. She also taught students with learning disabilities, and I can imagine she was brilliant.

She leaves behind a lovely family – Tim, her delightful husband, who is also a gifted poet, Matthew and Katie, and a grandson.

By opening the door to a skill I didn’t even recognise in myself, Claire empowered me and, I believe many other people. 

Just over a week ago, in my capacity as Chaplain to the Mayor I realised I had to say something about the massive weight of responsibility faced by the Councillors today. Available time was limited, but it was important to let the Councillors know that they were appreciated. I wrote a short poem that (apparently) worked well, across all parties. This poem would never have existed without Claire. Here it is.

In Times of Uncertainty
Dedicated to all the Councillors of Brighton and Hove

In times of uncertainty
Good people happen.
The hungry are fed
The weak nurtured
Gardens are cultivated
But it is not easy

In moments of uncertainty
So much of what you do
Seems indiscernible and yet
It is not; unassuming service
Changes lives for the better
It brings gifts beyond compare
As you put your hand to a small pronouncement
As you touch a household you do not know
A gesture of compassion brings immeasurable change
In times of uncertainty
We need you 
We are your community
This is our City 
I am that street dweller
These children are yours
And so, we are in your hands
Held in your hands… and your heart
Thank you… 

And thank you so much Claire Shelton-Jones…

I have never been able to understand those that hold works of fantasy and fiction in contempt. All my life I have been convinced that the greatest characters in fiction are to be found everywhere in life. Characters of the imagination are simply archetypes of people that we all know, in some form or another. The most spectacular recent ‘dead ringer’ who constantly pops up in the news is Dominic Cummings – the so-called political strategist, currently serving as chief special adviser to Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Not only does dear old Dom look exactly like Gríma Wormtongue from the Lord of the Rings, but he operates like him and the nature of his working relationship to the bumbling Prime Minister elegantly duplicates Wormtongue’s relationship with King Theoden of Rohan. The similarities are stunning. Even more astonishing is the fact that Grima is also having his strings pulled by another force of power, not Putin the Red but Saruman the White, or Saruman of many colours, as he liked to be known. The similarities are spectacular. If you haven’t read Lord of the Rings, or seen the film, do so now, I am convinced that Cummings has styled himself on Gríma to simply brilliant effect. Well done Dom.

The dramas and real tragedies we are witnessing now have taken on all the horror of a compelling children’s book. Somewhere in the distance all the people and animals in the forest are being swept away on a tide of water and the force of wind thrown at our world by Nature, Nature, the beautiful spirit that has simply had enough of us all, and our idiotic, destructive ways. Meanwhile the King and his cronies lie under the bedclothes snoring and farting and pretending that nothing has happened. From time to time his knights protest, but all he really wants to do is stuff his face like Billy Bunter and sit at his great oval table and hear the voices of his sycophantic toadies squawk “Yes, yes, great King. You are right. You are powerful. We bow down to you, and do as you tell us.” Well done Dom and well done King Theoden (aka Billy Bunter) and well done J.R.R. Tolkien, although Wikipedia tells me that even Wormtongue is based on another ancient character – Unferth from Beowulf. Personally, I am inclined to think he is just another archetype, somebody we all know, and Uriah Heep belongs in this category… and that said… go and see Armando Iannucci’s “The Person History of David Copperfield” it reminds me that we are all archetypes, all cartoon characters, and hopefully even the bad ones eventually get their comeuppance, even if it takes a bit of time.

On the subject of cartoon characters… Martin Scorsese has it wrong when he says Marvel films are formulaic and ‘aren’t cinema’. Marvel films are just jammed full of splendid stories and wonderful characters, from Rocket Raccoon to Gamora and I for one would far rather sit through Avengers Endgame than live for three hours with The Irishman, which is also about violence, but violence of a more unpleasant and realistic kind. But then, it takes all sorts. I have loved Marvel all my life and I fear I am not very highbrow. Hey ho!

In days of old, when I was running my Marketing and PR Company, I had an office in Kentish Town. Kentish Town then was not the most glorious corner of London, and 30 years ago it was a bit rough, yet aspiring to be genteel and trendy. Our company office was in a mews, and it was quite charming in a bijou sort of mewsy way. We were located opposite a builder, and our other neighbours were thoroughly mixed, varying from an arty-farty photographer to something that was faceless and anonymous, and remained so, and then disappeared very suddenly.

We worked hard, employed quite a few people, and had quite a few adventures. My joke, which was a half joke half-something else was all about how to appeal-to and also appease the household gods. Apparently household gods fall into two categories – the number one hearth goddess and the fairies – better known as Peaseblossom, Mustardseed, Cobweb and Moth… or Twinkle, Dinkle and Stinkle depending on your choice of literature.

I have always had a strong feeling for good and bad in places, and for many years our office seemed to be a good place, honoured by good spirits, and optimism. As a company we were modest, hard-working and jolly and delivered good work to our clients. Time passed and clients came and went, and the company flourished, and things were good while we were there.  Meanwhile… although I didn’t have shrine to the household gods, I regularly deferred to them, and the staff and co-director put up with my eccentricity, and joined in the fun. 

Then things started to happen in the mews. We had an armed robbery opposite us, and the weekly wages for the builder, which were all in cash, were snatched. After this the vulnerability of the mews started to become apparent. The photographer suffered from a theft, and about six months later so did some other neighbours, and we with our notorious optimism and the support of the household gods continued unaffected…until a year or two passed-by. Then one day we arrived at the office to discover that the very large and expensive five lever lock had been prised off the door, and taken away, and computers and their chips had been grabbed.  A couple of weeks later the thieves came back to take whatever they fancied and had left behind the first time.

 We left shortly afterwards, taking a circuitous route, firstly staying for a short time with an advertising agency that had taken over the photographer’s studio and installed heavy-duty security, and then on to an office in Kensal Rise. But the most intriguing thing was the change that underwent the Kentish Town mews office after the burglary. However much we attempted to shore up the equipment, or the furniture in that place, after the robbery, the fairies were gone, so much so that the staff would comment on it regularly, and they were a lot more astonished by the change in atmosphere than myself. The difference was palpable. The good fairies had flown… for good.

That departure by certain spirits from certain places is something we can all identify. It’s not about the colour of the paint, or the warmth or the smell. It’s something to do with the people occupying a space, something to do with feng shui but its more than that. It’s to do with ambience, love, spirit and other things that defy language. It explains why certain cultures have powerful forces that favour them for eons, and then those spiritual or godly elements depart as quickly as they arrived. The presence of mystical and mysterious forces, both positive and negative in rooms, temples, churches and also open spaces is something that children and animals can identify, and adults less so, unless they are spiritually sensitive.

Very recently, when I was on holiday with my partner; we visited all sorts of gardens and stately homes and castles. One of these gardens and its associated castle filled us with a deep sense of apprehension. We couldn’t even enter the building, and although we walked around the gardens, which were large and wild, we still could not shake off the feeling of dread until we had departed from that place. I will never be persuaded that such feelings are imaginary, because they are as real as toothache or bad weather. They are there, and until we start to connect with such feelings, in a healthy and sensible way, we may find ourselves blundering through life without any reference to our intuition which is there for a purpose.

Intuition is a force and feeling that is wise, even if in the short term it appears not to be the case. Intuition is an intrinsic part in our lives and the lives of others, with its lovely knowledge and interaction with the spirits of Peaseblossom, Mustardseed, Moth and Cobweb, to name but a few fabulous and famous fairies… that you have to admit… can be so very loveable.

There is a school of thought that believes that we have the right to say and do anything anywhere. I am in trouble with the Unitarian Church because at a service ten days ago (that I was holding) I got into a conversation with a mother whose young child clearly did not want to be in the church, and who could blame him? It was a lovely sunny day and the child was making a lot of noise, and yelling that he wanted ‘a wee’ while his parents tried to amuse him with lots of toys and appeals for quiet, which he understandably ignored. People seated around the family looked ready to scream, but unable to do so, because a church is not a good place to scream. When I spoke to the mother about the disruption, she became huffy and asked if I wanted the family to leave… and I checked-in to my inner self. I looked briefly at the congregation, a quiet peaceful group of people who were going to listen to an address about spirit and music, who would later be meditating in near silence, and decided that ‘yes, I wanted them to leave’.

Because of my carefully considered decision I have become a pariah in the Unitarian church, and have been seriously admonished. And so… it came to be… that I was asked why I showed no remorse… and I leave the answer up to you.

The idea that a sacred space is always suitable and open to everyone is not sensible. Some places of worship need quiet to honour and respect a sacred moment and the need for peace and others do not. When we hold the interfaith service on the 24^thNovember the church will be full of yelling and singing and reciting kids having a great time and being generally part of the action. I love them. It is their space then — a space for a great mix of people of all ethnicities, faiths, families, ages and ideas. Even the children that come to see their siblings will be happy, because the space honours them all. This is about respect. Respect to know what is right at the right time. 

The other night we all sat around the box watching Jacob Rees Mogg sprawling across a bench in the House of Commons in the most ludicrous way. It was no different from PM Johnson putting his foot on a fine table in the office of the French President for a picture opportunity. It was no different from the PM shouting abuse and children’s playground language at the opposition… language ready to be used and re-used in the tabloid press. This is about inappropriate behaviour, an understanding of what is right in the right place. This is about the difference between children and adults, and I respect both, in the right place at the right time… because I am both. But it is up to adults to identify what is appropriate in order to honour time, place, and moment and the needs of other human beings.

As we sat in front of the box, screaming at the slouching Rees Mogg, our much-loved member of parliament – Caroline Lucas – stood up and voiced everything that had gone through our minds, and more. She reminded us that Rees Mogg’s body language sent out a message – it spoke of boredom… and the unwritten agenda was lack of respect. Respect is needed… right now, and the ability to identify when it should be used is almost as important as expressing it. Respect is not a word that the leadership of this country understands… and this is a shame, because we all know what it is… and we respect respect. Respect is very closely related to love… and lack of it defies language.

We are witnessing a horrific fight for the keys to 10 Downing Street. A rabble of disloyal self-serving politicians is driving our country to hell in a handcart… they don’t know what loyalty is… and they don’t care…

We need loyalty right now. This was my address at The Unitarian Church last Sunday: I started as boringly as possible, so that everything that came afterwards was greeted enthusiastically

Online Etymology Dictionary says that: loyalty comes from the Old French loialte, leaute and The Medieval Latin word legalitas. The earlier Middle English form was leaute (mid-13c.), from the older French form. …is about Allegiance … It’s a matter of principle and applies especially to conduct. (Apparently)Loyalty is a matter of both principle and sentiment, conduct and feeling; it implies enthusiasm and devotion.

This deadly dry explanation from cyberspace just reveals that the use of a word in isolation doesn’t mean a thing, but when it’s woven into poetry, literature, conversation and life-experience it’s is a great deal more beautiful and meaningful.

Apart from the madnessof loyalty, the kind of loyalty that led nearly 2.67 million men to volunteer for the First World War, and other mistaken acts of human faith, the word means something very special. So, when I think of loyalty in its most simple sense, I have an almost visceral feeling about it, that is even stronger when I recall those films and books where loyalty has been a key part of the story. I am an enthusiast for some popular literature: The Lord of the Rings, and The Fellowship of the Ring, and Harry Potter all lean heavily on loyalty as underlying themes. I draw the line at The Famous Five, but I’m sure you won’t mind about that. Interestingly it’s said that Agatha Christie held loyalty in low esteem. Maybe that’s why I feel a bit off about her, and I don’t think she likes me much either.

Tolkien was clearly a great enthusiast for loyalty, which may have come, in part from his gruesome wartime experiences. It’s not surprising that The Lord of the Rings is so deeply concerned with loyalty as a central part of its plot. It’s a strong characteristic of the Hobbits, who always insist on doing stuff together. Despite their diminutive size they are allowed to become four of the Nine Walkers chosen to counter the evil of the Nine Black Riders. Their powerful devotion to each other is evident to Elrond (Number one elf) who agrees to let them form the main representative group in The Fellowship of the Ring. 

In Rivendell, the home of Elves, Elrond outlines what the Company of the Fellowship can and cannot do. Later on, when the Company has undergone some terrifying adventures, it is in an act of weakness and disloyalty that upsets everything. A member of the fellowship, Boromir, who is a man (rather than elf or dwarf) breaks up the Fellowship by trying to use brute force to take the Ring of Power. And this is the point in the saga when we discover what can happen to people who are disloyal. It’s a moment that opens out the plot very effectively. In the space of just four short paragraphs…in a book of over 455,000 words, the chain of loyalty is broken with disastrous consequences:

            ‘Come, come, my friend!’ said Boromir in a softer voice. Why not get rid of it? Why not be free of your doubt and fear? You can lay the blame on me, if you will. You can say that I was too strong and took it by force. For I am too strong for you halfling,’ he cried; and suddenly he sprang over the stone and leaped at Frodo. His fair and pleasant face was hideously changed; a raging fire was in his eyes.

            Frodo dodged aside and again put the stone between them. There was only one thing he could do: trembling he pulled out the Ring upon its chain and quickly slipped it on his finger, even as Boromir sprang at him again. (Frodo was now invisible)The Man gasped, stared for a moment amazed, and then ran wildly about, seeking here and there among the rocks and trees.

            ‘Miserable trickster!’ he shouted. ‘Let me get my hands on you! Now I see your mind. You will take the ring to Sauron and sell us all. You have only waited your chance to leave us in the lurch. Curse you and all halflings to death and darkness!’  Then, catching his foot on a stone, he fell sprawling and laid upon his face. For a while he was as still as if his own curse had struck him down; then suddenly he wept.

            He rose and passed his hand over his eyes, dashing away the tears. ‘What have I said?’ he cried. ‘What have I done? Frodo, Frodo!’ He called. ‘Come back!’  A madness took me, but it has passed. Come back!’

Tolkien didn’t let Boromir get away with his act of betrayal. Wild with remorse and regret, he lets this tormented character sacrifice his life shortly afterwards, for the good of the Fellowship, now divided by his act of disloyalty. Meanwhile Frodo, believing that the power of the ring warps everyone around him, runs off to Mordor, to destroy the ring.

It’s a great evaluation of the massive potential effect of disloyalty, and how it can cause a chain reaction. Of all human emotions I have witnessed in my life, disloyalty sows the seeds of regret more than almost any other. Men who have left their wives and children, people who have said bad things about people they admire, all live to regret their disloyalty… Loyalty is both positive and powerful and is much better if honoured if one wants an easy life. And all this serves to remind us that love is almost surely the most important force in our lives (and whatever our belief system) is something sublime.

Another enthusiast for loyalty has to be JK Rowling. Despite a few personal doubts about the consistency of her writing, I have to admire her for her tremendous plot construction and portrayal of loyalty as revealed by Harry, Hermione and Ron Weasley in Harry Potter. These three all know exactly what loyalty is about, and very rarely waver in their support of each other. Like the Lord of the Rings, loyalty is a key component to the story. The loyalty of Severus Snape to Harry’s mother, and to Harry himself, is particularly beautiful and touching, given that for most of the book Harry is fairly unpleasant to Snape, in every way. Snape’s loyalty is almost angelic; through thick and thin he continues to be loathed by everyone, other than Dumbledore, yet still remains both loyal and brave in the face of great opposition. This is loyalty indeed, and it’s a wonderful study of loyalty at its most consistent and touching. As a study in fidelity, its almost worth reading for this alone. I like to think that its impact on the young people has been both profound and life-changing.

There’s not much doubt that loyalty and love are closely related in more than one way, and disloyalty and betrayal are also pretty well one and the same. Yet in the world of business some people use the idea and ideal of loyalty in quite a base way — the phrase ‘customer loyalty’ in all its cynical glory makes my heart sink…. For the time being let’s just bask in the light of faithfulness and kindness as revealed in this church and its congregation, and also another lovely quotation, this time from Cicero, ‘Nothing is more noble, nothing more venerable, than loyalty.” 

My role within the Interfaith Contact Group (IFCG) recently switched from Secretary to Co-Chair, a position I share with Kate Williamson. Now Charlotte Gravestock, who was Secretary before, is Secretary again after eight years. It’s no exaggeration to say that both Kate and Charlotte are inspired.

Hove Methodist Church

The Interfaith Contact Group of Brighton and Hove is in itself an inspirational organisation, a microcosm of all that is best in the worldwide interfaith movement. It’s harmonious, peaceful and wise.

But being involved in an interfaith organisation is not all sweetness and light. One of the sorrows of belonging is being so very aware to the horrors of people of belief being killed, tortured or maimed for who they are and what they believe in. It is so very strange that within the human mind, another person’s beliefs are reckoned to be so bad and inferior to one’s own that one feels the need to kill them. Do those people who set out one sunny day to blow-up innocent men, women and children ever have any self-doubt? I wonder. This evening the IFCG will be holding a peace vigil in Hove Methodist Church at 6pm, honouring the people who died in Sri-Lanka, and next Wednesday, May 1^st, we will hold our monthly Interfaith Peace Prayers at the Baha’i Centre in Stanford Avenue from 6pm to 7pm. Loving, sacred words, which draw people of all faiths and none are becoming increasingly important… and needed.

Here’s a prayer I produced for the vigil this evening:

When we lose spirits of faith
Caught up in a moment
Of sacred celebration
We lose so much of ourselves
And so, we feel abandoned

The departed pass on…
Holding belief in their hearts
Christian, Jew and Muslim
Buddhist, Atheist and Pagan
They continue their journey of mystery
But we, the survivors are left behind

It seems that energy, soul and belief
Life and love have gone for good
Because of the bad…
Known or unknown…
Companions go unheard and unseen
And so, we feel forsaken

And as we stand on the shore
Watching the tide shift gently
So very gently
We witness the change from being
To non-being
And we feel adrift and abandoned

And some will want revenge
And others are too bereft to think
And the rest will seek to know
And there is sorrow and desolation

But the truth lies in all of us
Those that have departed
And those that remain

It is buried… so deep
That when we come to our moment
Of knowing why they left us
We realise that there was no staying or leaving
We were, and are and will be…
We were never alone, never abandoned
And never destroyed
For we are as one
And the story has no end

If you watch lots of television, whether it’s the news, or a drama series or a documentary film you may conclude that there is only one way to deal with terrorism: it’s to deploy a bunch of blokes in black clothes, bullet-proof vests, balaclavas and battering rams to break into the wrongdoers’ hideout.  Then your crack-team will either blow up the terrorists, or hand-cuff them and take them off and incarcerate them. In other words, one deploys a similar response to the problem itself, one that does not differ much from the methods the perpetrators might favour themselves.

Or one can do something completely different… the problem is that our Government has no idea about what this may be, and that is one of the terrible problems of the moment. We are run by a Government with no imagination, no will and no intelligence… but there is another way, as I will reveal at the end of this bloggetty blog.

To appreciate the fact that our Government is clueless about violence, one needs only to go back to 2003 when Tony Blair declared war on Iraq. Those of us that marched on February 15^th then, realised we would soon face relentless terrorist activities from people who had never been our enemies before. Why couldn’t Tony Blair see this? I have often wondered.

There are many causes of violence and governments, particularly ours seem incapable of understanding the root causes.  People who invest in war and conflict is one cause. The other, and maybe even more terrible cause is poverty itself. In scenarios of poverty, where there is no hope, people resort to violence, either under the influence of extreme anger, alcohol, oppression, or frustration. I have a friend who has done a lot of filming for charities in Afghanistan. She tells me that if the (oxymoronic) Ministry of Defence had deployed the kind of money it spent on arms and killing people, on acts of friendship instead, like building schools, new homes, health and agricultural initiatives, the story about Afghanistan and what happened there would have been completely different. The cost financially would have been a great deal less, and we wouldn’t have seen so many innocents killed and maimed.

The UK has a history of war and waging war, and we have learnt nothing.

Here’s a terrible statistic that I found in Google: Over 14 million people, about one in five of the UK population are in poverty, according to the Joseph Rountree Foundation. Of them 8.2 million are working-age adults, 4.1 million are children and 1.9 million are pensioners. Eight million people live in poverty in families where at least one person is working. This is a terrible recipe for violence and disaster; it’s a recipe for domestic violence; it’s a recipe for terrorism, it’s a recipe for people to hate and hate again – to hate people with more money than one has oneself — to hate people of different ethnicity — to hate people of different ages, genders, looks and sexual inclination. It’s the anger behind Brexit and perhaps something a great deal worse.

On the Third of October 2018 our Leader, the Rt Hon Theresa May MP announced that austerity was over. And six months later we see pigs flying about, or as the Italians say, we see donkeys flying, or according to the French, we now celebrate a week with four Thursdays on St Glinglin’s day, not to mention the Serbian suggestion that this is the moment when the willow bears grapes. So who dares to say that austerity is over?

But even in this awful moment, there is a way to tackle hatred. It’s to bring people together. To find common ground for ideas, conversations, creativity and interests. It’s to get people to eat and talk and share things together. This what that Interfaith Contact Group of Brighton and Hove does, without any money. If you want to see how we do it, please take a look at this brilliant 10-minute film made by Sarah West. I just wish that a few kids from the poorer places in our City could participate in this story, and maybe in time, this will happen… or better still, maybe the poverty in our City will be vanquished for good… one day.

The film can be viewed on the front page of our website:

www.interfaithcontactgroup.com

or with the following links… not to mention the link to Sarah West herself.

https://www.westcreative.org

Long ago and far away my Labour councillor urged me to join his political party, and I just couldn’t. It wasn’t until I had thrown my company out of the window, walked away from London, had a nasty dose of cancer, and found myself doing a boring research job… that I found my way. The job involved studying the core ideas of the main political parties, and reading their unbelievably dreary manifestos. As a result of this journey through treacle and tedium I discovered a gem in the midst of the dross, and promptly joined the Green Party. Because I ate food that grew on plants, or under the ground, or on a tree, and breathed air and drank water, and because I loved nature with a passion, it seemed to be where I belonged. The environment was my thing. The environment is the thing for anyone who thinks about the important things in life. Loving the environment seems to me to be supremely sensible… And children can be reasonable and sensible, as we saw yesterday.

Caring for our world should be part of life, because we can’t live without our world. The wonderful children of the world know this. They know that green is about life itself, and that corporate greed is about death, and I am not talking about death as a beautiful gateway to the next world, but death as in choking ourselves and our birds, fish and animals and the sea and the air with plastic… Killing bees and all the other insect life with pesticides, and throwing toxins and material waste everywhere and destroying clean water, and raising the sea levels, and creating climate havoc, and, and, and… you know the rest.

The last marketing job I did involved the creation of a wonderful exhibition stand with an exquisite design featuring the downs which served as an enchanting backdrop in the midst of many a dreary exhibition hall. My marketing career of a zillion years came to an abrupt halt when the person I reported to said to me “Oh no! There’s far too much green. Green, green should never be seen!” thus repeating the superstitious words said to me by my grandmother a century before. Both believed that green was an unlucky colour. Actually they both got it wrong. The phrase is “Blue and green should never be seen unless there’s something in-between” and as I think lovingly on the glory of the Sussex Downs and the beauty of the blue sky, I can only marvel at the sheer perfection of nature, the harmony of these two most perfect colours – blue and green – and the sheer dottiness of humans, and their capacity to destroy so much that is good and glorious… but hey ho!

Being aware is a double-edged sword. One can see that the future Brexit path looks dangerous, and this country faces a potentially horrendous future for its young people. I find myself imagining what might happen to the poorest amongst us… and then these thoughts remind me that (some bloke called Dan Zadra said) ‘worrying is a misuse of the imagination’.

That’s the moment when I do a bit of spiritual wandering. The conflict and uncertainty give way to contemplation, and the contemplation takes one to a place that is not so much escapist, as a world of reality. It puts things in a different place and reminds one that everything that provokes passionate feelings, is a matter of perception. It’s a point of view, and it’s time to step outside of it all. And this week I visited ‘The Spirit of the Wayward Feather’, a dreamy pattern of thought that can take one all over the place, like a floating feather.

Very often when I’m doing things around the house, like sitting down to write, making a bed, doing a bit of cooking… a feather, such as one might find in a pillow, or in a garden, will float down. Feathers are objects of enormous power. They are reminders, comments and connections with reality, imagination, dreams and above all the subconscious, the deepest most beautiful self. For a start feathers are ancient and useful. They evolved like skin and horns, and they are an essential part of birds, the plumage, but they were also part of the outside covering of dinosaurs as well. They are useful, like pullovers only better – they aid flight, keep things warm, help diving birds to whizz about underwater and are beautiful and very decorative. Some feathers are rare and exquisite and highly valued.

Everything in this world has energy and spirit, and the spirit of a feather carries many messages. Meditating on a feather could take a lifetime. The structure is enormously complex, depending on the size and function of the feather itself; it includes shafts, barbules and hooks and all sorts of things. But I am looking at the spirit of the feather, the wayward small floating things that drift down from a corner of the house, or the garden and offer a thousand ideas. If the feather could speak it would say — I have been worn in battle, giving the wearer the power of the bird that I belonged to; I have been shoved into pillows and used as a pen, a tool to write with, wielded by the greatest minds and the greatest poets and playwrights; and that pen was mightier than the sword, as we all know. I have been part of the most delicious eiderdown you might want, but I am also a reminder, a powerful messenger.

It’s no coincidence, that angels who are messengers with wings are invariably equipped with feathered wings. Having worked on the Angel Year in our City, gathering images from age groups across the board, if I hadn’t come to recognise the importance of angel feathers by now, I would be a dim-wit. People young and old associate angels with feathery wings, and this crosses all faiths and many interpretations. Feathers belong to birds and equally to angels. So…Are wayward feathers messages from angels?

Most importantly when you have forgotten about feathers, they come to you. They float down from nowhere. Many people believe that they are messages in themselves, reminders of people who have died, loving communications that empower one to recall somebody who is elsewhere. Many, many times, I have been told that people recalled a loved one because of an inexplicable feather that floated out of nowhere. The Egyptians reckoned that a light heart was something to do with being a goody, so they did a nice metaphoric weighing of a heart on the one side and a feather on the other. The word light, has so many meanings, and presumably light meant a few things in hieroglyphs as well. And with this in mind, it’s time for us all to be light as a feather. To be frivolous. To tickle ourselves with a feather. To honour the tickling stick. To accept a good message from the feathery realms, and smile, remembering that if you start to be aware of the spirit of the wayward feather, you must also appreciate that feathers come from a glorious variety of birds – from the grand and dangerous birds of prey, to the smallest and most beautiful hummingbird – and the messages they give us should remind us at all times that we are of this world, and should therefore love and protect this world and its birds, just as we are part of other worlds, where messages, ideas and dreams spring from objects that simply float out of the sky.