My four sisters and I grew up in a family that was fortunate to have an.. an ability to tell the
future via playing cards! (I did have a fifth sister, but I only learned of her when I was well into
my twenties. My Mother just happened to mention it!)
So it was this talent to dip into the deep pool of spacial-chronology that was mainly on my
Mother's side. She would occasionally explain in her bumbling, not-so word-tasting manner
that all the past, present and future were going on as she spoke.
It was just like breathing to her.
During the night, she would awake screaming and much to the annoyance of my pragmatic
'if I can see it I can kill it' -Father, shout out at invisible 'somethings' that circled the ceiling or
floated outside the second-floor bedroom window.
Many times in that tiny house, (I was the only boy and we ony had two bderooms. Ergo, I slept
in my parents room)... I would lay wide-eyed as she gibbered a conversation from her bed with
unknown parties in the dark when my Father was working the night-shift!
Later, when the daylight shooed whatever ethereal beings had intruded my Mother's slumber,
she would tell me about things that were about to happen. The accounts were silly, unimportant
things regarding neighbours and a very vague description of something in the news that would
come to pass.
You see, my Mother's world was small. Incidents that were global meant very little compared
to what Mrs. Miggins down-the-street was up to with the milkman!!
(That's an imaginary example, not a true one!)
I learned that the way she perceived reality was really weird as I grew up, because to her
everything was connected and there was never a start, middle and end point. Time is a fluid
thing that isn't etched in stone and cannot be relied on as an anchor.
As Ninurta comments, the consequences of a decision flows both ways, sideways, up-down
and nowhere at the same moment. The possibilities of that decision will allow alternative past
outcomes to become valid and of course, the future spreads wide like playing cards being
offered by some celestial croupier!
So I'd suggest the present is the only part we may have an handle on and be careful when you
place your bet!
To my Mother, death was merely a failing of the vehicle you moved around in -although she
never said it in those words, and a human's grasp on what it's soul was all about, could never
be fully appreciated even when one had passed on!
'Some of them like it here' -she'd say and get on busying herself with an household task and
her classic comment was 'They just don't get it'
She also told me that idea of 'Life-After-Death' is something that's connected to this puzzle we
call time and she -like myself, I had no idea what it is or how it's involved. So the ghosts aren't
alone with that poser!
I don't do it now, but on some occasions, I used to dabble with the suppose-gift of being able to
read people's futures with playing-cards. I have the Tarot and Rune stones, but it's never felt
quite the same as looking up into the eyes of the someone who turns one of the more-standard
paste-boards over.
You see, the past, present and the future sweep by us every day, the trillions of possibilities of
the future shuffle and slither alongside the more-compact multitudes of the past and the endless
potentialities are -and will be forever incomprehensible to us.
The present is the consequences of individual choice and the ripples of every simple and important
decision undulate out to find their place among that flowing river of promise.
I guess that's why my Ma stuck to the shallows and pondered what would happen if Mr. Miggins
ever came home early.
It's not for our heads and we shouldn't mess with it. There's no harm in carefully peeking over the
grassy-bank of self-conceited assurance of the 'real' and gazing into the swirling eddys and slowing
pools of uncertainty for answers.
But you won't find the meaning of life there and you won't be able to get next week's lottery numbers.
No Sir.
Oh... and a word to the wise. Don't ever think of swimming in there. Ever.
future via playing cards! (I did have a fifth sister, but I only learned of her when I was well into
my twenties. My Mother just happened to mention it!)
So it was this talent to dip into the deep pool of spacial-chronology that was mainly on my
Mother's side. She would occasionally explain in her bumbling, not-so word-tasting manner
that all the past, present and future were going on as she spoke.
It was just like breathing to her.
During the night, she would awake screaming and much to the annoyance of my pragmatic
'if I can see it I can kill it' -Father, shout out at invisible 'somethings' that circled the ceiling or
floated outside the second-floor bedroom window.
Many times in that tiny house, (I was the only boy and we ony had two bderooms. Ergo, I slept
in my parents room)... I would lay wide-eyed as she gibbered a conversation from her bed with
unknown parties in the dark when my Father was working the night-shift!
Later, when the daylight shooed whatever ethereal beings had intruded my Mother's slumber,
she would tell me about things that were about to happen. The accounts were silly, unimportant
things regarding neighbours and a very vague description of something in the news that would
come to pass.
You see, my Mother's world was small. Incidents that were global meant very little compared
to what Mrs. Miggins down-the-street was up to with the milkman!!
(That's an imaginary example, not a true one!)
I learned that the way she perceived reality was really weird as I grew up, because to her
everything was connected and there was never a start, middle and end point. Time is a fluid
thing that isn't etched in stone and cannot be relied on as an anchor.
As Ninurta comments, the consequences of a decision flows both ways, sideways, up-down
and nowhere at the same moment. The possibilities of that decision will allow alternative past
outcomes to become valid and of course, the future spreads wide like playing cards being
offered by some celestial croupier!
So I'd suggest the present is the only part we may have an handle on and be careful when you
place your bet!
To my Mother, death was merely a failing of the vehicle you moved around in -although she
never said it in those words, and a human's grasp on what it's soul was all about, could never
be fully appreciated even when one had passed on!
'Some of them like it here' -she'd say and get on busying herself with an household task and
her classic comment was 'They just don't get it'
She also told me that idea of 'Life-After-Death' is something that's connected to this puzzle we
call time and she -like myself, I had no idea what it is or how it's involved. So the ghosts aren't
alone with that poser!
I don't do it now, but on some occasions, I used to dabble with the suppose-gift of being able to
read people's futures with playing-cards. I have the Tarot and Rune stones, but it's never felt
quite the same as looking up into the eyes of the someone who turns one of the more-standard
paste-boards over.
You see, the past, present and the future sweep by us every day, the trillions of possibilities of
the future shuffle and slither alongside the more-compact multitudes of the past and the endless
potentialities are -and will be forever incomprehensible to us.
The present is the consequences of individual choice and the ripples of every simple and important
decision undulate out to find their place among that flowing river of promise.
I guess that's why my Ma stuck to the shallows and pondered what would happen if Mr. Miggins
ever came home early.
It's not for our heads and we shouldn't mess with it. There's no harm in carefully peeking over the
grassy-bank of self-conceited assurance of the 'real' and gazing into the swirling eddys and slowing
pools of uncertainty for answers.
But you won't find the meaning of life there and you won't be able to get next week's lottery numbers.
No Sir.
Oh... and a word to the wise. Don't ever think of swimming in there. Ever.
Edith Head Gives Good Wardrobe.