#silly funny dog time in da grass

[ericaandfb]

silly dog moments

ko-fi

[seuzz]

Short Stories: Rudyard Kipling

Let’s read some short stories!

Or I’ll read them, and post a little summary of them here. How’s that sound?

All the below are from Rudyard Kipling’s Tales of Horror and Fantasy:

* "By Word of Mouth": A civil servant's wife dies of typhoid; his servant reports seeing her ghost, who says she will meet her husband soon at a small town; he is summoned to that town and dies. Some style in the telling, but it's a plain and obvious anecdote.

* "The Recurring Smash": From boyhood, a man has suffered physical calamities, some life-threatening during the months of May and June. When an adult he finally seems to have shaken them off by marrying a woman. The wedding occurred in May, and it is strongly hinted she is the most calamitous thing to have happened to him ever. Clever twist at the end of a not-too-long build-up.

* "The Dreitarbund": Three men use confidence tricks to mimic psychic phenomena in order to woo three women into marrying them. A sketch more than a story, and a bit of a chore to comprehend as it is told very indirectly.

* "Bubbling Well Road": The narrator recounts a time he and his dog went boar hunting in tall grass in India. They narrowly avoided falling into deep well. They find an old priest and force him to take them out. The natives later tell him that the priest uses witchcraft to lure people into the grass for his evil practices. Reads like a short adventure; the eeriness doesn't really take hold.

* "The Sending of Dana Da": A fakir revenges himself upon a silly English cult by plaguing one of them with a manifestation of kittens. As he dies, he confesses that it was all a trick he perpetrated with the help of the victim's servant. A funny little satire that works through caricature.

[mystictruth123456-blog]

A magical adventure in the woods

Today I felt bored. A bit in a rut. I had been grieving about my mum for many days and things felt a bit pointless. It seemed like nothing was exciting me that much and I Didn't have much of a plan for the day. I had read A few pages from Ram Das's book the mirror of the soul, about how to accept everyone and everything in our life as part of our life curriculum, that our desires create our world.  I was thinking about staying at home for the day but realised after pulling the reversed butterfly card from my animal medicine card deck that belonged to my mum, that it was time to embrace change.  So I walked out of my apartment after breakfast onto the street, I prayed beforehand for an adventure.  the sky was a clear blue and the sun was out which is rare in England. Since it gets dark around 4pm nowadays out here I thought that it was important that I moved quickly, if I wanted to experience any good weather in the woods. I realised how strange it was walking around Harrogate because I spend most of my time in Leeds and when I am in Harrogate I usually just am in my studio. I went into this bookstore called "Waterstones " and looked at the joke section of the store. I looked at everyone and remarked in my head for the thousandth time how strange English culture was in how reserved and private people are. Nobody looking at each other, nobody acknowledging each other. it's just weird and a bit awkward.  I marched my way all the way to the valley gardens, a collection of beautiful flowers, trees in a park, of all different sorts, with a little stream, mini ponds and ducks.  I got near the trails in the woods and told myself "This is all a dream."  I called the spirit of the dragonfly to teach me. A spirit that breaks illusions and reveals the magic of reality. As I entered the trail in the woods I begin to see the magic of it all, the trees, plants, the grass. Everything was very much alive. In my thoughts was still this voice of boredom and apathy. I kept wandering through the Woods off the trails until I reached a spot by a tree where I sat down. I thought to myself "if you have a day where you don't know what to do and feel you are in a rut, you could either stay in the apartment all day or wander around the Woods." I just decided to sit with and surrender to my feelings of boredom. A part of me felt it was unfair that I should deal with this sense of pointlessness after all that Had happened with my mum. There didn't seem like there was any positive reason for this. I just sat and sat, having a sense of perspective about things and suddenly I noticed my mind drift from my boredom and apathy to random thoughts about people, funny experiences and things I liked. I begin telling jokes to myself and quoting a Will Ferrel blooper from one of his movies where he goes "check out my my plums, all swollen, blue hued and juicy." I kept saying this to myself hoping to cheer myself up, remembering that I have a sense of humour that I forget this at times. As I was sitting there dogs started to come past. Usually I have a fear of dogs because I was bit  by a dog  as a child, yet this time I just radiated love toward the dogs and the owner. My practice now is to look into someone's eye and see that awareness that We share, that is not their body, not their mind or their feelings. I did that with the dogs and noticed a lack of fear. Our minds are constantly projecting our interpretation of reality onto things, and quite often are pretty inaccurate. That was another mantra for the day, that my mind often plays tricks on me. The miracle that really got me out of my mind rut was the the dogs that showed up out of nowhere. First it was this dark, mop looking dog just staring at me, sniffing the ground then staring at me again, then came the procession of wiener dogs. One, two, three, four of them, one of them black and brown like a Rottweiler and the others ones more whitish with traces of other colours. It was a very random pack of wiener dogs. I said to myself "The wiener dog coalition" and begin cracking up as the owner and the pack left the scene. I went on a excited wandering through the woods at this point, spotting different varieties of wild mushroom, calling in thousands of coyote spirits, hummingbird, and porcupine spirits to lighten up the mood. I noticed for a while now that People had just known me for being that silly guy, because I had tried to have deeper conversations and it wasn't received well. Now I felt I could integrate the deeper part of me and the comic in me together. My humour has always been one of my great strengths and brought me back to life after a challenging time.  My memory kept getting flooded with hilarious adventures I have had with friends. Such as my often shy Spanish friend who went back to Spain a few weeks prior, being drunk one night and like a hunter, spotting a girl and then making out with her. it's easy when you are grieving to forget these happy times in life, and when your having them it's easy to forget what those tough times feel like as well. My journey led me to a open field, the clouds amidst the blue sky alive and powerful. From there I reached a more open wooded space, with trees dotted around and the sun shining through the trees. I thought of how my mum told me that whenever she was abroad and looked at the moon she knew at some point her family or friends far away were looking at the same moon. I looked at the sun and thought of my stepdad looking at the sun and Imagined what it would be like in his shoes, living his life which I'd never fully know in this life. I came upon another field, on the other side of a stone wall, the sun shining brilliantly on the grass and through the foliage. There was sheep in the field. I could have imagined my mum saying "look at the sheep, look at the sun, look at the trees" with that childlike curiosity she had. The wiener dogs came past again, I scuttled around them and the lady who owned them said "don't worry they won't hurt you." I Felt a sting of pride to my manhood. I was only one percent afraid of the wiener dogs and she called me out on that one percent. I also received an invite a party in Burley Park, Leeds from a friend. I reached the bottom of the wooded path and began my ascent back up. This time reflecting on the people that had past through my life in Leeds. The invite to Burley Park reminded me of these things. I had also made deep connections with my flatmates when I lived in Burley Park for a month in the summer. It seemed like a dream. It always mystified me, how you could be close to people, have this story together and next second it could be all over like it never happened. I reminded myself that those people and experiences were still in my heart and though there may not be as much action in my life this week, It didn't mean I had lost my spark of adventure. It was still there. Overall upon leaving the woods, I was very excited that I had taken this little journey into the nature. It had proven to be very fruitful. When you are in a rut do something different. Life is fully of adventure when you come at it at the right angle. Check out part two of day. The Italian restaurant  Part 2 After leaving the woods I arrived in busy Harrogate on a Friday, the Indian restaurant that I wanted to go to was closed so I decided to go to an Italian restaurant. I felt a bit introverted yet I wanted to order my food in Italian from the Server. Mustering up the courage, because I was very new to Italian, I ordered my food. The server came back and I asked him "di dove sei di Italia?" (Where you from in Italy?) he looked at me and said, "I am not from Italy, I am French. " So I quickly slipped into French. An older English couple begin chatting to me because they overheard me saying that I was American to the waiter. I was more surprised that someone had started a conversation with me in England because that rarely seemed to happen but I appreciated it. Usually I am the one starting the conversation.  Upon leaving I said "au revoir " to the waiter who shook my hand and "arrivadeci" to the owner. I realized that I had a bit of a prejudice towards many French people, often when hearing that they were French, not wanting to speak with them. This came from experiences early this year where I had made one French friend and had a French flatmate who I had grown fond of over time. My French friend introduced me to the other French that he knew in Leeds and they acted very friendly towards me at first but when they were together they kinda ignored me quite often. My French French said that the French were often like this. I had many more encounters like this where the French seemed very closed if not downright rude to new to people they didn't know that well. With the waiter I realized I just needed to let go of that. That we wear all different types of mask in life and all these external things we identify with are not our true authentic selves. That these people I have met whether I liked them or not, also have their challenges, fears, desires, positive qualities and negative qualities. To let go of those judgments, that protective armour that keeps us separate and freezes our hearts. To give everybody the benefit of the doubt, take everyone as an individual, that is the goal. I went back to my house and after some blogging I had a chat with my Stepdad. We debated some of these concepts I have mentioned here. Overall it was a very fruitful day and I had many eye opening experiences. Accept people as they are is one great lesson I learned