This 30 minute podcast is recorded while sitting in the remains of an Iron Age Courtyard House, up the hill on the farm where I live.
It doesn’t look very exciting nowadays, though it’s a nice place – but then, if you were 2,000 years old, you might be a bit worse for wear too!
This podcast is all about what life was like in the Iron Age in Cornwall, two millennia ago, and the way people saw things then.
Looking into the yard of the courtyard house. Behind are Sancreed Beacon (left) and Caer Brân (centre right), and far behind them is the hill on which the Merry Maidens stone circle sits.
This was the Celtic period – though the Celts shared a culture, and they were not one people. In West Cornwall many were descendants of the indigenals of the Bronze Age.
It’s about life and reality systems in our time, and in the Iron Age, and also in the Bronze Age and the Neolithic – how people saw life and the world in each of these periods, and how their technologies reflected that.
With some insights into what we can learn from them now. This is important. As elder dowser Sig Lonegren often used to say, quoting his Seneca teacher Twylah Nitsch, ‘We seek not to emulate the ancient ones – we seek what they sought‘.
This is about pitying the winners, social healing and walking our talk.
The core issue is this: ascension and the birth of a new world will take place only when we are truly ready for it.
We wish for peace, ecological restoration, socio-economic justice and change in every sector of life that we can think of.
But the big question is whether and how much we’re ready and willing to do what’s necessary to allow such things to happen.
Until we become ready and willing, we’re holding back progress on planet Earth. As philosopher Edmund Burke put it: ‘For the triumph of evil it is necessary only that good people do nothing‘.
37 mins. Recorded while sitting in the ruins of a 2,000 year old Iron Age courtyard house, down’ere on the farm.
Wind-strafed heather on Bartinney Castle, West Penwith, Cornwall
I’ve just had my three-monthly phone conversation with the haematologist – she’s at the Royal Cornwall Hospital in Truro. One good thing about my particular cancer, Myeloma, is that it is easily tested and monitored with a blood sample (I had it two weeks ago). So we can do it over the phone. She’s always rather brisk – the poor woman probably gets fed up of the list of calls to make through the day, and with us cancer patients and our anxieties.
Anyway, I had been anticipating bad news. Well, not exactly bad, but not good either. I was hovering between optimism and pessimism.
This winter I’ve begun experiencing a kind of stress – partially due to circumstances but also because part of me feels vulnerable and undefended. No one has my back. It takes me back to experiences I had around the age of six-seven-eight. I remember the feeling of it. I was turning short-sighted, and as an unrecognised Aspie I felt like a stranger in a strange land and a fish out of water. My poor old Mum was always busy with other things, without paying much attention, and the world seemed so big and incomprehensible, and somehow I was expected to manage with all this.
Nowadays they might call that ‘learning difficulties’ but it isn’t really. It’s not a lack of intelligence but a bit too much of it. It’s a complex Aspie perception of the world that takes longer to compute – for me, it took until around age fourteen, when suddenly the other boys started calling me ‘Professor’ instead of ‘Speccy-Foureyes’.
Part of me feels like a seven year old – feeling a need to have someone holding my hand and shielding me from that big world out there. This is quite a change from earlier times in life when I had more confidence and a relative invincibility that was calm under duress and pretty competent – I’m a Virgo, after all, and us Virgos tend to be quite calm and serene, or we tend to be neurotic. Or perhaps both at different times.
So I was somewhere between nervous and calm over this phone call. It could decide many things. One thing in particular is that the next line of treatment – I’ve exhausted two out of five now – is Thalidomide. It’s a good cancer drug, the doctors say, but what makes me nervous is this: my mother took Thalidomide for morning sickness while pregnant with me, and I was very lucky to emerge into life with all my limbs and body-parts intact. Apparently, deformed bodies arise only if the drug is taken during a certain early week of pregnancy, and it wasn’t that week for me. However…
Prayer clooties at St Euny’s Well, near Carn Euny. But if you ever wish to tie a cloutie at a well, make sure it is natural and biodegradable, since the problems you weave into it will disappear as the cloutie rots away. And it doesn’t throttle the tree.
I have Asperger’s Syndrome, and I have wondered whether it’s related to the Thalidomide I took, second-hand, during gestation. The chemotherapy I had four years ago made me wonder about this – particularly the steroid Dexamethasone. The drugs seemed to amplify my Aspie symptoms. The behavioural transition prompted by these drugs helped lose me a partner and some friends. It has become more difficult to manage some of life’s tricky social situations, or deal with bureaucracy, or insensitive people, or hackers, or modern-times complexities.
But, on the plus side, this Aspie-amplification has led to a wave of creativity, perspective and original thinking. As you might perhaps have noticed, I’ve been churning out loads of stuff – mainly in the form of blogs, podcasts and books. That’s the other side of Aspergers – the Aspie genius, with an ability to excel in certain specific interests and gifts (though not necessarily in the full range of abilities that modern humans are supposed to cover). Also, there’s a certain blindness to human guile and manipulation, making us emotionally rather susceptible to getting caught in other people’s webs without realising it.
Many ‘neurotypicals’ judge Aspies to be emotionally neutral or feelingless. Truth is, we get so flooded and drowned in feelingful impressions that we short-circuit or melt down, showing little or no responsive expression except perhaps the look of a rabbit frozen in the headlights. Or a bit like Commander Data. The picture comes clear within hours, days or longer, but by then people have formed their conclusions and stomped off, often making big, inappropriate decisions on our behalf.
Over two years after we separated, I have only recently lightbulbed a bundle of key insights into my relationship with my former partner that I had just not seen before. I had sensed it unconsciously but I still didn’t see it. While talking to a friend I suddenly saw it – the whole pattern and network of connections, events, clues, mistakes and junction-points. It’s funny when that happens – everything suddenly becomes very different. Nothing changes, but everything changes, and a healing can occur.
Yet the paradox is that empathically I understand the workings of the human psyche and human emotions more clearly than many people, though not necessarily in my own personal sphere of life. Many would interpret this as a growth blockage, a refusal to open up to my emotions, but that’s not the case. It’s just that I operate with a different operating system that computes things in a different way, and neurotypicals have some advantages and Aspies have others.
The main problem is that neurotypicals are in the majority and neurotypical culture is dominant, even though today we’re presented with a rather chaotic and multidimensional spectrum of psychodiversity. NTs tend to define the rules and, being more rule-bound than Aspies, they tend to insist that everyone should behave like them, according to their criteria.
Victorian architecture, at Porthmoina Cove, Penwith
Anyway, the haematologist quite likes me – I’m an easy customer. She was pleased (yet again) with my results. I’ve had no cancer medication now for four months and, lo behold, there is no significant change in my readings.
So suddenly I’m feeling relieved. My wobbles were just that – wobbles. It means I won’t have to go on Thalidomide for the next few months at least – and I won’t have to do the rather long journey to the hospital either, once a month.
That’s good, because it comes back to that vulnerable, undefended feeling. My fear is that my Aspie tendencies will get switched up by Thalidomide. The bit that concerns me most is that I have no one to speak for me or cover my back. There are times when I blank out and (this might surprise you) have nothing to say, at precisely the moment when I need to fend for myself. Or I simply forget about something important, remembering it afterwards, and too late. Again, it’s that eight-year old feeling where there are quite a few things you can handle, but some things are too much. You need Mummy or Daddy, or someone, to come to the rescue.
But there’s a lesson here too, in trust. Things always work out alright. My anticipations were based upon the fear that my readings would deteriorate and they’d put me on the new drugs quite quickly. I have a few public speaking engagements coming up, and some anticipation about how well I’ll do on stage if I’m on new drugs. Or whether Thalidomide would lead to regrettable behavioural changes, just as the steroid Dex did. But there was no need to worry, and everything is alright. My readings are fine.
So is Paldywan the oratorical bard. Lacking anyone to talk to, a few days ago I went up the hill to the 2,000 year old ruin of a courtyard house and recorded two podcasts on the trot. And one of them, Ascension, comes out with this blog.
There’s a funny twist I discovered recently. In 2021 I contracted Osteonecrosis of the Jaw (ONJ), as a side-effect of some pharma drugs I had been on earlier. It caused pus to drip from my chin – urgh, yuk! It made me feel horrible and disgusting and, naturally, no one wanted to come near me. I asked myself about the inner meaning of this, digging up an image or a memory of having had leprosy sometime back in history, and being rejected by society. Rejection and exile are two karmic patterns of mine. When I twigged this, it made some sort of sense – deep memory was involved in the ONJ.
As time went on the ONJ subsided, becoming manageable. Then, a few days ago I was looking up the various uses of Thalidomide and the two specific ailments mentioned were leprosy and multiple myeloma (my kind of cancer). Ah, there’s a connection. I’ve been given a clue. Clues like this can act as keys to healing. It’s fascinating how intuition can know things long before the brains catch up.
I’ve started on some new holistic remedies – the main one is Resveratrol, a specific treatment for Myeloma. I’m back on Shitake Mushrooms as well. I have started some new supplements and remedies too, including one by Detox Trading in Devon called Happy Mix – it really does lift the spirits and, with the late spring we’re having, it has helped me emerge from wintertime blues and cabin-fever.
The Watcher. A simulacrum at Porthmoina Cove
I didn’t need to be worried about the haematologist’s verdict. Perhaps I am a neurotic Virgo after all. Though there’s something else here too… cancer has stripped away many of my defences, sensitising me to vibes, energies, situations and scrangles. There’s more emotional lava erupting as well. This makes me both more open and more vulnerable. Small things demand more processing than before, yet I’m less dulled by the very defences, built with the cement of trauma, that are designed to protect us from a rather tough and violating world. Life has become more colourful, textured and meaningful.
So a key cancer benefit – or a possibility, at least – is that cancer is a big jolt to become more human, to live more fully – even if physically constrained like me. In some respects it might be worth looking on cancer as an upgrade – and other terminal, serious and painful ailments too. From a soul viewpoint, at least.
It’s not a matter of primary importance how long we live – dying ‘before one’s time’ isn’t necessarily a failure or a shame. What matters is how we filled the time and space we were given, how we chose to experience the life we had and what contribution we made. In terms of soul evolution, three years with cancer can sometimes be equivalent to fifty years of normality.
But then, you don’t have to contract cancer for that to happen. It’s the way cancer hits you that matters, and what doors it opens – and whether we choose to go through them. This is regardless of how well or badly the cancer goes from a medical viewpoint. It’s the psycho-spiritual impact and the jolt that matters. It induces a cards-on-the-table focus of energy and of will-to-live.
It obliges us to face our shit, stuff, fears, failings and foibles. And regrets. On a deep level, that’s one reason why cancer is increasing in incidence: it’s one way in which the soul of humanity is serving us notice that we need to wake up. Or, at least, wake up more. Or you die. It’s a simple formula. It’s a bit like being in a war or crisis zone – the situation is terrible, but a crazy enspiritedness can take over, making you put your life on the line and getting you through to where you truly need to go.
My cousin Faith calls it a state of super-concentrated uncertainty. Or I’m reminded of the title of Alan Watts’ book of fiftyish years ago, called ‘The Wisdom of Insecurity‘.
Even so, I’m rather relieved to know that I’m cruising along on a cancer plateau and my results are okay. I felt it was so, but the confirmation is much appreciated. After all, it does help to know at least a little about what’s going to happen next. Should I buy a new computer or put some money down for my funeral? Um, I don’t know, but it might be the computer. Sometimes you just have to choose. And that’s what life on Earth is about.
With love, Palden.
[Written using human intelligence. Such as it is.]
PS: my cancer book is progressing, and recently I decided to release it as an audiobook too – better for people with fatigue and chemo-brain. I still haven’t found a really good title for it though. That’s most strange. I guess it’ll come in its own time.
I don’t always post here about the Sunday Meditation, but they continue regularly every Sunday, and here’s a reminder (should you need one).
You’re welcome to join the meditation this week – or any week – on Sunday. Times are below. We’re a loose group spread across various countries, who meditate together simultaneously. Meditate, contemplate, pray or inner-journey in the way you normally do it.
No sign-up, fees or strings – it’s a group of us sitting together, simply sharing a wish to contribute to raising the vibe of our world and helping it break through to a new level of being.
Since the eclipse the tide has changed direction. However, the powers that be, plus general habit and intertia, fail to recognise this and seek to carry on as before. This will come apart and derail at some point and the current frenzy of wars, arguments and dissonances will start unravelling. But right now it’s tentative, not a foregone conclusion.
It’s good right now to reaffirm the direction the tide is now starting to head in. It hasn’t yet picked up momentum, though events are likely to push things that way as time goes on. It’s a flow moving toward resolution and sanity, following a paroxysm of madnesses and injustices that, through their excesses, have shifted public consciousness deep down.
Gandhi-ji called it satyagraha – truth force. The power of reality to overcome delusional beliefs. Getting real. ‘Smelling the coffee’.
Current times, on Sundays: Iceland 7-7.30pm UK & Portugal 8-8.30pm W Europe 9-9.30pm E Europe and the Levant 10-10.30pm Brazil-Argentina 4-4.30pm EST, Cuba, Jamaica, Colombia 3-3.30pm PST North America 12-12.30am
CONSCIENCE AND WORLD CHANGE – a podtalk from 2007. It came out then on Glastonbury Radio.
Many people have been vexed over Gaza, Ukraine, Sudan and the parlous state of the world. It can give a really discouraging, hand-tied feeling of not being able to do anything about it.
This podtalk addresses the matters of conscience and moral sensitivity – personal and also across society and the world. It was broadcast during the Iraq war, when similar feelings were afoot for many people. It’s taken from a book of mine, Healing the Hurts of Nations.
It might hold some answers and put things in perspective, concerning these rather vexatious issues.
Originally it was a radio programme with a really good choice of music woven into it, but for copyright reasons I can’t publish the full version – and that was a two-hour listen, while the talk alone is one hour long.
Leave it for a time when you have some space for something thought-provoking. Because it is. It has some real gems in it.
When an eclipse happens, it’s as if time and normality stop for a while. Our choice is to respond consciously and awarely, or to act out the energies unconsciously – sometimes leading to trouble.
If you aren’t acting consciously and with intent, then there can be confusion or disquiet in your psyche. It’s because the barriers or veils between the levels of awareness and reality are opening up, for a time-stretched short moment. If we are unwilling or unprepared to go deep, then psychological avoidance strategies can kick in, and all sorts of discombobulations can set in with them – things go off at a tangent and can get difficult.
That’s why Emergency Departments in hospitals are usually busy just after eclipses. People get the consequences of unconsciousness.
Things happen to change the agenda. This is an amplified newmoon and the beginning and end of many threads, narratives and trains of events. So it’s rather portentous.
It’s a moment of pattern-setting. That is, we’re given opportunities for re-setting patterns, possibilities and probabilities, just for a short time. Miss it, and it’s gone. It’s a special space of calm intensity. The thoughts-feelings that come up during that time are oracular. They say far more than is being said.
Think positive. What you choose to think and believe can get set at this point. If you’re just running on routine, for better or worse, routine is what you will get, and cringeingly so. If you’re open to possibilities, openings and even miracles, they become more possible.
A miracle is something everyone agreed was impossible until it happens.
It’s a time for forgiveness and releasing. The past is over, and that was that. If it clouds the present and future, you’ll just get repetitions of the past, until it is too late and force majeure takes over.
It’s a time of exaggerated, deep, eerie stillness. In that stillness, be still. Visualise positive, fruitful, helpful outcomes – not necessarily what you want but what is in alignment between you and what the universe seeks.
There’s an element of fate and destiny to this – things that the rational mind does not like to accept. Patterns get set. Whatever comes up in your awareness at the time of an eclipse is relevant and oracular. Your unconscious, your conscious and your superconscious are in temporary, fortuitous alignment – now’s your chance.
Nature goes silent. Birds and animals lie low. Energy-fields collapse and are rebooted. The psyche either goes quiet or it gets jittery, panicky or disquieted.
Modernists like to think the ancients had superstitious beliefs and were scared of eclipses. Not so. This is an ideological and rather arrogant judgement, using imprssions drawn from superstitious times in the Middle Ages, when the Church taught that the Devil was on the rise – which everyone naturally feared.
But the lesson here is that the light doesn’t go out. It’s just a matter of time. It returns, only temporarily obscured by the mechanics of time and planetary orbits. The light never dies, and darkness brings with it a deep and profound revelation of meaning.
An eclipse is an extended short moment of insight and revelation, a superconjunction of the Moon and Sun. So, instead of standing there with expectations of what you think might or should happen, open up and receive what is actually given. Remember, be here now.
In a way, it’s better to feel and eclipse than to see it – this can be something of a distaction, though also it can be deeply stirring to behold.
If doing ceremony, be mindful to avoid confusion and disarray amongst the people present. Don’t wait for the technical time of the eclipse – it is a buildup and aftermath process lasting at least two days on either side of it. Give it time, and settle down – quit chattering, whether to yourself or others. Be there fully.
Notes from the Far Beyond 
You must be logged in to post a comment.