…but a little bit of everyone we meet… their essence… resides within us.  The atoms move on.  Of course we all emanate from one homogenized soup anyway and I read somewhere once, that the atoms contained in our breath have all been inhaled by someone else at some point in time.  So I might have just breathed in an atom of Nuryev… Why Nuryev?  To digress, as per, I was once asked by my then young son to choose any ‘body’ I’d like to inhabit for a day and that was my almost immediate response.  (Almost immediate?  Oxymoron sorry!)  And his?  Me!  Wow.  An unusual answer which was deeply moving.  Soooo, back to the atoms… No, I’m Googling… Here we are… quoting Deepak Chopra:

When you take in one deep breath you inhale ’10 to the power 22′ of atoms.

For those who are lost at this point, never mind the previous one, in visual terms that’s 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 atoms and that’s in each breath.  Do the Maths over a lifetime!  It has been calculated that we have 1,000,000 (doesn’t look much compared to the other figure, does it?!) atoms right now that have been in the bodies of say Hendrix, Hemingway or Hitler!

In the last 3 weeks alone, the number of atoms that have passed through our body… You don’t wanna know; another large figure with a lot of noughts… HAVE GONE THROUGH THE BODY OF EVERY LIVING SPECIES ON THIS PLANET,

whether it be a tree in the Amazon, a koala in Australia or a shop-keeper in Amsterdam.  So you could say we’re all connected and pretty intimately at that!

At this juncture, I’d like to quote some lines by a truly amazing poet, Roselle Angwin.  A few years ago, I attended a week long poetry writing course she co-ran on the Isle of Iona (off Scotland), so guess we exchanged a few zillion atoms!  This extract, taken from her poem ‘The Perfect Tense’ from the collection ‘Looking For Icarus’, also heads her blog site: roselle-angwin.blogspot.com

Young stars and gas clouds in our neighbouring galaxy: The Magellanic Cloud (170,000 light years distant)

The stars are in our belly; the Milky Way our umbilicus.

Is it a consolation that the stuff of which we’re made is star-stuff too?

– That wherever you go you can never fully disappear –

dispersal only: carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen.

Tree, rain, coal, glow-worm, horse, gnat, rock.

Wow!  This kinda leaves one breathless and I wanna keep you there with a poem called ‘A Finger, Two Dots Then Me’ that moves us away slightly from this theme to another… This one written by the incredible performance poet Derrick Brown which got turned into a film…  No, panic not… It’s a short Short and winner of numerous film awards.  Derrick’s powerful rendition is evocatively interpreted by David and Daniel Holechek (the producers behind Duality Filmworks).  I’ll put in a plug for the Spiritual Cinema Circle as well, because this film featured on their DVD compilation for November 2012.  Without further ado then…

“The design in the stars is the same in our hearts”.  Yes, oh yes, Derrick.

Powerful stuff this.  It never fails to move me… and I’ve watched it many, many times… So to bring us all back to Earth with a bump similar to when Pooh’s ballon popped… Oh Gawd, don’t ask me… I need to explain how this whole blog came about.  Today, I was out flyering… which might be last week by the time I get permission for the photo, the extracts from 2 poems and the short Short.  (Permission actually came in the same/next day… Thank you all… and I’m still fiddling with words!)  Anyway… the weather’s been changeable of late, so if dry, I grab my chance to put in a few hours, Sunday or not.  Even the U.O.* managed to put in an appearance today!  Blessed indeed.                      *Unidentified Object aka The Sun!

The area I was covering lies outside Winchester.  Don’t often get sent there but am on ‘nodding aquaintance’ terms with one or two folk and wondered whether I’d see them again.  Being Sunday that was more likely.  Got to one property where on a couple of occasions, I’ve had a natter about trees with a charming gentleman who lives there.  Like myself, he loves trees and is very knowledgeable about them.  I told him about the many trees I’ve planted in different locations round the UK… though not all have survived.  He pointed out his walnut tree that 12 years ago, was gifted to him by a squirrel and I laughed because that’s exactly how I’d acquired mine.  (My young walnut was ‘stolen’ though, which annoyed and saddened me, especially since it’s an integral part of a short story to be published… but can only hope that the perpetrator has given it a good home).

Slip sadly now from present to past tense because the chap tending the garden told me his Dad had passed on.  What?  He was only in his 60’s… and that’s young when you reach that age yourself.

It hit home that when we say ‘Goodbye’ to anyone, it may indeed be the last time.

I set off but my joy bubble had burst.  After a contemplative lunch break, I returned to ask whether I could take a photo of the walnut tree as a memory and was told “Feel free. Dad’d like that.”  But those words: ‘We touch, we are touched, we move on’ kept haunting me.  “Your essence though sir, is with me still. Glad we met”.  Not easy to ‘move on’ though… those times when your repair kit’s woefully inadequate.

In closing, we need to remind ourselves to say…

often to family and friends because right now,

‘…someone is writing out a cheque that will be marked ‘drawer deceased’

someone is circling posthumous dates on a calendar

someone is listening to an irrelevant weather forecast…’

 taken from ‘SOMEONE’ by DENNIS O’DRISCOLL

Strange that I should have selected these lines, this poet, because when I phoned Bloodaxe Books to ask for permission I learned, tragically, that Dennis had recently passed away too.  Another youngster; hadn’t even reached 60.

So we should live each day as if it’s our last but surmise that it’s only those who’ve had a brush with death or know they’re dying, who truly appreciate this maxim.  Bless you.

In Memoriam

P.S. This is not the intellectual blog mentioned in my last blog that was to be next. That’s NEXT… unless I get side-tracked again.

COPYRIGHT FOR WORDS / IMAGES / VIDEO:

Photograph of The Magellanic Cloud… Credited to NASA , ESA and Jesus Maiz Apellaniz (Instituto de Astrofisica de Andalucia, Spain).  Thanks to Nicola Guttridge @ www.spacetelescope.org

Extract from the poem ‘The Perfect Tense’ from the collection ‘Looking for Icarus’ reproduced here with the kind permission of Roselle Angwin.  Thank you.

The video of the film ‘A Finger, Two Dots Then Me’ copied here with the full consent of Daniel Holechek of Duality Filmworks.  The link to their Facebook page is via: https://www.facebook.com/AFTDTM and Derrick’s website is at: http://writebloody.com/brownpoetry/about/  Appreciate this guys.  Hope you enjoy this ‘off the wall’ blog!

The 2 photographs of the pretzel letters and walnut tree are copyrighted to myself, Cassandra Scott.  ‘I Love You’ previously munched by my son, Alexander.

Extract from ‘Someone’ by Dennis O’Driscoll from the anthology ‘Staying Alive’ published by Bloodaxe Books.  This excerpt falls within the ‘free press’ allowance.

The Spiritual Cinema Circle can be found at www.spiritualcinemacircle.com  They also have a Facebook site.