writer’s block – Notes from the Far Beyond

Life has been quite a grind and a test recently. Living as a partially disabled cancer patient makes wading through life twice as difficult, and sometimes I get deeply weary with it. That’s been happening recently.

But there’s a weird psychological program in me that has meant that some of the best work I’ve ever done has been done during such periods, when my Saturnine tough-it-out programming gets activated by life and its grinding difficulties. I tend to tough it out by engaging myself in doing something. A project.

It’s an Aspie hyperfocus thing: if you can’t change your circumstances, change your mood by doing something creative and ultimately useful – even if it yields no immediate benefits. That’s how the program goes – for me, at least. Except there is one big benefit: it changes my mood. And, bit by bit, that can change everything.

That’s how, somehow, over the last forty years, I’ve managed to write fifteen or so books on quite a variety of subjects. Many were written amidst difficult circumstances, or arising out of them. The gratifying thing is that I still agree with pretty much everything I’ve written – or spoken about, broadcast or taught. I have few regrets about it. Which is quite remarkable, really.

Just recently I’ve been at it again. I had a crisis a month ago where I felt uninspired, feeling that I’d said everything I needed to say, and were people interested anyway? Well, as such crises do, it represented a deeper fermentation process going on in the nether recesses of my psyche, and an inner repositioning was going on, unbeknownst to me. I started looking at ‘outstanding issues’ and ‘unfinished bits’ in what I have done. After all, as a disabled oldie who spends more time alone than I would prefer, I do have lots of time.

Just yesterday, my friend Brian Charlton was here. He’s another Glastonbury defector now living in West Penwith – there’s a little secret cabal of us, actually. He lives the other side of St Just, our local village, and he is part a local support group, the ‘Friends of Palden’, that is a blessing in my life. He was on his weekly visit, and benignly badgering me about these unfinished bits. Very perceptive. I realised he was right. I needed to beaver away at clarifying and finalising the signals I’ve been putting out, and there are unfinished bits, and bits yet to evolve further, if life allows.

But there was more: I realised was already instinctively doing it, though I hadn’t realised it until then. It had started with two podcasts, both of which came up spontaneously, about Inner Doctors and Intuition. That got me flowing again, unblocking the logjam that had scrangled up my psyche. That’s one secret that many creators need to understand: if you get blocked up, do something, anything, to get yourself unblocked. And it’s best to forget what you think you ought to be doing, and to be spontaneous and creative instead – because that’s where the taproot of creativity lies.

Then suddenly I found myself starting doing a revision of one of my books, Shining Land, about the ancient sites of West Penwith. Well, there were some typos, readability issues and tweaks to attend to. So I thought. But as things progressed, I realised that new work I have done in the last few years, since I wrote the book, needed adding. I’d gained some new perspectives too, blessed as I am with lots of thinking time.

Most of the book has just needed tweaks and small improvements, but the chapter on Hill Camps has had a rewrite, adding my thoughts on Bronze Age circular enclosures such as Caer Brân, built around the 1800s BCE for tribal gatherings, and their significance. Also, I’ve added new material to the final part of the book, about Megalithic Geoengineering, breaking the last chapter into two and adding new work to both, about landscape temples, wildwood cover in the Bronze Age and ancient trackways in Penwith. And there are some new maps and pictures. I’ve worked on the indexing too (it’s rather tedious).

But here’s the rub. I can’t write books any more. My brains can’t do it. I can do blogs, podcasts and small projects, because they are done and dusted in a day or two. But books? No, they’re big projects. Even so, I can revise books I’ve written before, and the great virtue of revising a book is that the big thinking has already been done. So I can focus on style, details, text-flow, images, maps and new ideas. I can make it a better read.

I discovered this ten years ago when revising an astrology book first published in 1987, Living in Time. It was a good book but it had dated, with out-of-date examples in it from the 1960s to the 1980s. It also needed another spin, since times had changed and many more people were aware of what the book writes about. This is how Google’s AI assesses it:

“Power Points in Time is the title of a book by Palden Jenkins that explores the concept of time and its influence on various aspects of life, drawing on astrology and other cyclical patterns. It examines how understanding these patterns can provide insights into events, decisions, and even the meaning of life. The book uses examples like lunar phases, planetary alignments, and ancient festivals to illustrate how time can be understood as more than just a linear progression.“

Actually, that’s a pretty good summary. That’s the first time I’ve used AI in any of my writings, and it’s likely to be one of the last, since I am decidedly AI-free and Patreon-free in my outpourings. And, for better or worse, I prioritise eyeballs and ideas over monetisation too.

So I revised Living in Time and it came out in 2015 as Power Points in Time. I really enjoyed doing that revision, precisely because the big thinking had been done, so I could focus on other things. But there was another matter too: in 1987 I had pitched the book to people interested in astrology, though later I found that it was most popular with people interested in ancient sites – a different circle of readers. Meanwhile, over the quarter century that followed, I had developed a clearer idea of the combined importance of power points in space (ancient sites) and power points in time (peak periods). So I re-pitched the book toward this ‘power points’ idea.

Then a few years passed, and a big change came to my life – getting cancer and becoming disabled – and, reviewing my life, I realised I hadn’t written a book about ancient sites, even though, on and off, I had studied the matter for fifty years and had done a lot of research in Cornwall for ten years. So along came Shining Land – the ancient sites of West Penwith and what they say about megalithic civilisation. My core proposition was that ancient sites were built for conducting shamanic consciousness work, and that the 600ish ancient sites of West Penwith actually constituted one big, integrated ancient site.

By making a ‘landscape temple’ out of the whole cliff-bound Penwith peninsula, it was possible to raise this consciousness work to a higher level, to benefit not only the local area and its people but the whole planet. The planet is one being, that we have come to know as Gaia, and if the ancients got themselves into enough of an elevated state to do so, they could commune with Gaia, adding a human touch to her work as a planet-being.

They were practicing what I’ve come to call Megalithic Geoengineering. Big stuff. Planetary stuff. And, of course, there’s something to learn from this today.

So, you see, in health and life circumstances I have been labouring somewhat, though in other respects I’ve been quietly chiselling away at generating uplift and raising my spirits by doing those things that I can do, and being creative with it. It fires up my circuitry. Meanwhile I’m de-focusing on those things I can’t do and can’t have – things that weigh me down. As a result, a new, 2025 version of Shining Land will come out shortly as an online book. So there are results to this. Results germinated out of a time of hardship.

Two things happened to help turn things around. One was the spontaneous eruption of the ‘Inner Doctors’ podcast, which revived my creative spirits, and the other was a session with a homoeopath, my neighbour Anna Jenkins (no relation – we Jenkinses are a big Welsh clan). I think the remedies she prescribed have dislodged some fixities and rigidities within me. Well, to be honest, I cannot tell yet, because the last week has been low, lonely and dark and I cannot tell whether my cancer and demise are getting worse or whether this is what homoeopaths call a ‘healing crisis’. But I think I’ll opt for the latter.

It has more hope in it. And hope and belief are motivators. Not as an imposition on evolving reality, but as a way of intersecting fruitfully with it. Hopefully.

Changing the way we see things: inside every problem lies a solution, as long as we allow ourselves to see it.

Sometimes I struggle with that. So, in case you thought you were the only one in this vast universe who struggles with it, think again, for you are not alone.

Love, Palden

Shining Land: https://www.palden.co.uk/shiningland/
Power Points in Time: https://penwithpress.co.uk/product/power-points-in-time/
Podcasts from the Far Beyond: https://www.palden.co.uk/podcasts.html
Notes from the Far Beyond: https://penwithbeyond.blog

So here am I, a lifelong author and communicator, and I’ve been sitting here in recent weeks with nothing much to say. That’s unusual. It isn’t ‘writer’s block’: it’s a funny feeling of little to say. In my birth chart, Neptune and Saturn are opposing Mercury right now, so I guess this blog is expressing the essence of what that double transit is bringing.

I’m one of those authors who, if I have little that is meaningful to say, I don’t just rattle off material just to fill space, stay regular, fulfil expectations or contractual requirements. I go quiet instead. The best of my writing has always come when there’s a need. I wake up with it, and out it comes.

In life this has given rather uncanny gift which has been both a blessing and a bane: a strange capacity to articulate ideas and perspectives that other people were about to get, but they hadn’t got there yet. As if speaking to people from the future, pointing to how it’s going to be. Or might be. Or could be.

I haven’t always got this right, though there have been times I’ve got things very right. Sometimes I’ve perceived a possible reality that just didn’t happen that way, or I underestimated the influence of obstructors, or got my facts wrong, or suffered wishful thinking or over-optimism, or simply mis-estimated things.

Yet at times I’ve hit the nail right on the head, and it has sparked outcomes or affected people and situations far more than anticipated – sometimes going into the magical-miracle zone. Cosmic catalysis.

It’s a question of whether the benefits from things I got right have outweighed the misfires and problematicals. It feels as if this question is on the weighing scales at present. And, perhaps to prove the point, recently I’ve had little to say. It’s a pause for rumination. Or perhaps a reality-flip is going on. Or a reassessment.

My ongoing cancer saga continues. A new symptom has appeared in recent months: I’m losing the use of my legs. That’s what it feels like, though diagnosis is yet to come, following an imminent MRI scan of my pelvis and a diagnosis in the coming week. My legs are exhausted after a hundred yards, as if I’d just hiked forty miles. Even when just standing still, they turn to rubber, as if they’re about to give way.

It varies on whether it’s an Up day or a Down day. Down days have increased, when I have little energy, drive or inspiration. So something is going on.

It reminds me of six years ago when no distinct symptoms of cancer had yet appeared, but something wasn’t right. It wasn’t possible to put a finger on anything until my back suddenly gave way in August 2019. This was the first concrete symptom of a rapidly developing blood cancer, Multiple Myeloma. It’s ‘multiple’ because it has a range of disparate effects that vary greatly from person to person. This makes it difficult to diagnose.

So it took twelve long weeks to progress from a back-breakage to a cancer diagnosis, though this process was helped by a series of three inspired acts of intuition by, in succession, a cranial osteopath, a GP and a hospital specialist. Bless them all.

I can’t put my finger on what’s happening now, but something is happening. Astrologically, it concerns Mercury, and I’m a Mercurial person (a Virgo with a Gemini Moon). This feels neurological. There’s that ‘nothing to say’ syndrome too. And there’s more.

It concerns ‘growing down’ – losing our powers. This demands a lot of acceptance – getting used to the fact that something is ending. Really ending. In the past I’ve been a cross-country runner and mountaineer, and I find loss of leg-power to be confronting.

Also, as an author, many people are retreating from their phones and social media habits and, thus, many of my readers are simply disappearing. The default answer is to spread into new online media and engage in networking and marketisation strategies. I’m getting loads of e-mails from online promoters who want to marketise my podcasts.

I’d love to reach more of the kinds of people who might benefit from my blogs and podcasts, but I’m not interested in all that promo stuff. My abilities are waning and I can’t manage the work that’s involved. I’m not seeking to set up a business or build my career. This lifelong content creator is sharing his end-of-life process, that’s all.

By nature I am, or was, an integrity-marketer, studiously avoiding falsities, glamours, competitiveness and deceptions in my approach. I used to be a whizzo at this, but not now – my time was 20-40 years ago. Nowadays, online media are changing so much – I can’t keep up, and get my head around all the details. Meanwhile, digital costs and charges are rising, and this obliges monetisation. I can’t do this any more, I don’t have what it takes to crank up a business and I don’t want to leave too many complexities for my son to sort out when I pop my clogs.

So where this goes is anyone’s guess. Anything that increases my workload or demands feats of memory and micro-management will simply not work. Anything I do needs to serve my health and wellbeing without weighing me down, and I’m already going at the maximum pace I can handle. So there’s a dilemma here.

Fresh sets of eyes peer out on the great wide world. In a few weeks they will fly thousands of miles.

Anyway, there’s something to learn from all this. It’s a matter of looking at what’s underneath. It’s about acceptance of What Is. It’s a reduction of options. This happens to those of us who experience a gradual, stepwise end-of-life decline instead of a sudden, drastic one – things narrow and shut down, bit by bit. It’s simply a matter of doing our best with what is, and what we’re capable of doing – there’s little or no option. It can be difficult and rather final, though there’s a joy and fulfilment in it too, if we choose to see the gift in it.

Earlier in my cancer saga I used to measure my condition in terms of perceived age. My physical age is currently 74, and normally I hover around 80-85 in perceived age, but in the last few days I’ve felt like 95 – energyless, wan, off-balance, needing someone to hold my hand, and wondering whether the latest rewrite of my will makes sense.

Yet I’m also transported into the eternal present, propped up in bed, hearing the singing of birds in a crisp, microsecond, sonorous, meaning-rich way, as if they’re teaching me something. Which they are.

They’re teaching me a very special something. A something that words cannot truly encompass because words reduce it. It’s a silence between each frame of life’s movie. A moment of seeing, a shifting of optic, a moment of existential tranquillity. It’s very quiet. It’s momentary yet vast. A glimpse of the Void. A taste of the Silence. A Neptunian slippage of consciousness into a temporary eternity.

So perhaps having little to say has its virtues. After all, I’ve managed to say something about it, so something must be happening right! It just goes to show, there is indeed a gift in everything.

Love from me. Palden

Words and pics here are AI-free!

www.palden.co.uk
https://penwithbeyond.blog

Tag: writer’s block

Amendments

Saturn and Neptune