Hot Cross Buns of Existence

I’ve taken many steps down the uncertain path of self-inspired spirituality. This has led me away from the Catholicism I was half-born into. Yet last weekend I recognized something I do value about religion.

It came as indignance not epiphany. Imagine discovering that not even one extra day of the God-given right to a 4-day Easter weekend was going to be honoured by the masters of the Apple on the Eastern Shore. Heavens above it’s a religious holiday and tradition and I was deprived of it!

Indeed, you reach for the hypocrite button but that’s nothing I deny. Its been plainly evident from my always refusal to eat Octopii (they have 3 hearts!) to an acquired honourable act of not eating Crabs to the relevant indulgence of Hot Cross Buns on Good Friday.

How would I be able to enjoy these delectations while smeared up against the coalface of my current film project – unable to squeeze in even a ray of daylight?

It’s a long shot but eternal redemption may lie in even a strand of inexplicable dogma adherence. So twinning that with the lottery law of “you have to be in it to win it” I make sure I do leave the office on Good Friday in search of my winning ticket to heaven in the form of a delectable Bun, Crossed and Hot.

After a few wanderings around god-forsaken Times Square all I found was the most blasphemous cling-film-wrapped masqueraders. Hardly the most tempting of your work Satan! Aside from dubious consistency these things visibly contained those chips of mangy fake fruit all shiny green and red. I have standards and these would not do. So, I was forced, by weight of calvinist work ethic (I blame my atheist father), back to the office empty-handed, bereft of hope.

Sigh.

But when long past dark I made it back to the Apple Core, Gabriel himself made a visitation in the form of the superlative Miss Sparrow who’d equally scoured the Orchard and found 2 types of Hot Cross Bun! So while I normally appreciate these in the morning at least I was able to scoff them in the evening! See them here in all their finery next to the small shrine of special things I’ve assembled in a short few rounds of the sun.

A few of the more observant among you might notice a half-zested orange in that shot and the curious among you will wonder what significance it might hold in a religious “still life”. It signifies that this weekend was also to be a belated birthday weekend. In the annals of Lobster-lore, there is an allowance to defer the true celebrations if a birthday is had on the far side of the planet from one’s lover especially if it’s a big one! I was filming in Manila for my last “sun-circle”. And orange zest is essential as an ingredient to the icing of a Carrot Cake. And Miss Sparrow’s is indeed a formative religious experience. So that evening was like Michael and Gabriel popping by together.

As for growing up… from the beginning of ‘all-things’ the universe has strived to get as big as it can as fast as it can. And right now its exponentially expanding to more area all the time. Me too! Probably more like a Hot Cross Bun in the Oven expanding at the speed of yeast than the speed of light but now I am a 40-year old sphere of existence! The orb of my life expands 40 years in all directions giving me a much bigger surface experiential area than when I was a mere 38, 29, 7, 1 year old globule. And intriguingly this reminds me of the saying “The greater the searchlight, the greater the circumference of the Unknown”… This explains quite well how the more one knows the more one might be aware ones does not know.

So this ‘Me-sphere’ abuts with more unexplored territory than ever before and this fuels my thirst for horizon expansion. I understand this may fuel those perceptions some have that I will never be happy nor satisfied with what I have. Let’s not think because things are good that one shouldn’t continue to adventure!

But I think we’re less ‘Bun-beings’ than ‘Bubble-people’. Gorgeous cosmic existences, appearing, swelling and finally popping to scatter traces of our iridescence across all the spectral dimensions. I await my ‘after-bubbleness’ with all the expectation that my floating has served something else’s purpose.

Hope you had a great Easter – mine has been in a bubble of loving joy!

Much love

Doctor Lobster

ps here are a few other sphere-ish places I've been or things I've seen recently...

Bizarre Species

As Fresh as Dragon Breath

23 January - Year of the Dragon

Dum dum de dum and here the Dragon comes!

A tempest blowing up the gentle slopes of your life during the Rabbit. Whipping up your stagnant plans and deeds, so your only recourse is to climb higher into the mountains.

And in their deep fearful caves lies your destiny. Meander not this year. Feet forward and eyes on the horizon, rise. For as long as you stride with purpose the dragon will carry you on its back. To each of your steps she adds a dozen wingflaps. Head in the wrong direction and by years end you will be in a far worse place.

Now that last sounds wretched indeed but fear not for it only takes a beat of intention and integrity in line with your heart to give the dragon true direction and with it dreams far beyond the conventional ...

As each of us owes god a Death so too each of us owes a Life. Welcome the fresh air in to rejoice from the windswept majesty of the peak you're about to scale.

Much love

Previous years from Doctor Lobster


Hoppity-Hop
RRR-MiaowOxen-HO!
Rat-a-tat
Wallowing in it
Woof Hey
Cock-a-doodle-do
Monkey-man

and thanks to Pashet for the fetching blueness

Hot Cross Double Toad*

Few of you may know this but I am a deeply spiritual man, given to an annual retreat to the ritual of the Hot Cross Bun (previous HCB here and here). Today I had the blessed opportunity to (thoroughly) enjoy some of these delights of Christian tradition in the comfort of my own home. Or, care of unseasonally good weather, my garden.

So here are some snaps of me at worship with the fruits of his almighty sacrifice…






However I need to turn to darker matters now… You may recall the terrifying tale of The Headless Duck of my De Beauvoir garden. Well strange as that was, the truth may be even stranger. Back then I guessed it was a fox or some-such but new evidence raises a more horrific possibility!!!!!

Over a slightly indefinite period of at least a year but possibly two I have sighted a pair of toads. I saw them first while on a late night snail hunt. I was surprised that there were toads in my garden. But as I had caught them in flagranto delicto, I expect they were even more surprised but they chose to just stay still, two throats a-bloating. Toads fucking, fucking hell I thought! So that’s how they do it! Good on you toads – make more toadlets and eat more snails please. A nice find for a damp spring night. On I moved, stalking the stalky-eyed munchers of my beloved potatoes. I took at least 50 ‘shells’ that evening.

Some time later, weeks perhaps, while doing a routine weed of another snail-zone I encountered the toads again. Once more ‘at it’. It’s a wonder that rabbits have the reputation toads should have. Or maybe snails are a toadal aphrodisiac. Then my garden is the veritable rhino horn of amphibia! These 2 did however hop off together – one still upon the other.

Many months later, deep into autumn, in the company of the nubile, Miss Sparrow - whose often been subjected to the effects of my garden – I reencountered these frogs – at it yet again. I mention her as an independent verifier of this strange tale (and because I love her and am proud to sneak her into my life). Again the frogs made off into the undergrowth in their tandem fashion.

However, I felt the coincidence of always finding these frogs at it quite suspicious. Perhaps it’s a mother child dependent thing in which the child is lazily clinging on a little longer than it should.

Having stopped biology when I was 14 I’d not had the opportunity to dissect a frog nor learn much more than the egg, tadpole, toad cycle… and given that thought – at what point would a tadpole climb onto a parental-frogs’s back to score a free ride? And these toads have been the same fully-grown size since the first encounter. Peculiar…

So this Spring, but a few days ago… I did my first de-weeding of the ‘bog-out-back’. And low – who turns up? But the two toads… just the same size and one on top of another… I’m fond of these buggers, and used to them of course, so I leave them be and get on with bagging up the soon-to-wake slimy marauders I find.

Yet when I turn to the hosepipe I find the toads pottering around in a puddle right out in the open, at least a yard from cover. Having seen them now so often like this, suddenly I wanted to see them separate. But they don’t, and they don’t do it on camera. So what I have in my garden are Siamese Twin-Toads! How about THAT!!!!!

Could they have been the beast that beheaded the duck? Or did that headless fiend do this to them or is my garden the experimental playground for some Frankenstenian fiend?!?!?



And here is the promised video! Much higher quality available!


* I accept that due to my limited schooling the star(s) of this message may in fact be frogs not hot cross buns or toads.



And on another note – I will be off out of London and the UK in a few weeks until July 2012! Working on a top secret movie which one day you will hopefully all see…For the rest of this year I’ll be in Philadelphia, Phillippines and the Yukon while January to June next year sees me in New York.

Super much love…

Hoppity Hop

3 Feb - Year of the Rabbit

A year of indulgence in dream and delight, for what else is there to do between the rock of the Tiger and the hard place of the Dragon?

Seeds sown in previous years will sprout to become more permanent in your life. Don’t expect huge or obvious growth though, that comes with next year’s Dragon. This time is characterized by the small many, yet the sum is always greater than the parts. These innumerable events won’t be domino’s falling one after another but like a myriad of beautiful flowers springing up all across the meadow of your life.

It’s the best year possible to enjoy the verdant valley of existence. So roam free of fences, sniff inquisitively at any rose you pass, roll over, spin around, burrow just for fun and above all be sure to nourish all aspects of self!

Enjoy each precious moment here because next year you scale the mountain.

Til then though, more than beware, be aware.

Much love

Previous years from Doctor Lobster:

RRR-Miaow
Oxen-HO!
Rat-a-tat
Wallowing in it
Woof Hey
Cock-a-doodle-do
Monkey-man

Winter Flying Troubles - And a Law of Power

What a shame all this seasonal bad weather causing such travel chaos and hardship for so many in Europe,

Its been real ‘luck-of-the-draw’ stuff. Some people get stuck for days and days often having to abandon all travel plans. Others expect that and then get to leave on time no bother at all…

This has just been the perfect sieve to separate the lucky from the unlucky!

Many years ago I read a book called the 48 Laws of Power. It contained all manner of things one should do in order to have/gain/retain “Power”. Haha. Yet just about the only thing I remember from it was the directive to:

“Avoid unlucky people”

This bothered me … how does one tell if someone is lucky or unlucky… well we’ve just been provided with one such filter… so now we can know.

On the other hand there are so many occasions on which it is very useful to have an unlucky person around. For example its really unusual for 2 people to stand in dog shit on the same walk. Or be hit by a falling piano… the unlucky of the world are welcome to have a place next to me! No really, I mean it. I always thought it would be a really mean thing to do to deliberately avoid the unlucky.

Thus far I have been lucky. 1 of 3 necessarily delicately-timed flights have just happened. So I was lucky. Tomorrow will be the 2^nd and 3^rd of these flights. I’m interested to see if I now fall into the category of the very lucky or the badly disillusioned ! I feel really lucky… living this particularly interesting life and if you want further evidence that I am at one of the luckiest kids on the block… its cos I know YOU!

So have a Merry Xmas and a super magical wonder-new-year!

Feng Shui and Headless Ducks in the Vegetable Patch

A lot of people put the lid down on their toilets. Many of them do this is to prevent their wealth going down the drain which is what Feng Shui suggests. Others do it so that rats do not come up through the sewers and attack you in your sleep.

Both seem pretty good reasons to not risk it. One less likely than the other but in either case one would feel pretty stupid to suffer that fate when all it takes is a little extra effort.

So… what I want to know is… is this draining a constant nefarious thing? Is it best to slam that lid back down as fast as possible to save a second’s worth of wealth upon completion of the paperwork? Is the horrific draining power at its peak at a particularly time eg just as you’re flushing… is that when it’s most imperative to have the lid down? Is that in fact the only time its important? Does it matter how many times one uses the loo in a day? How angry should one be with visitor’s who have no respect for one’s hard-earned loot and leave that lid up after abluting?

And is this all applicable only in one’s own house… what about out and about, should one put that lid down before one flushes or does a toilet’s power to leech your wealth apply whenever one is near one? And on a national scale could this explain why all those 3^rd world countries with their open-air long-drop latrines are so poverty-stricken?

If anyone has any clarification on these matters most important please enlighten me…

I know a rudimentary search on some wiki internetti spaghetti page would answer at least the half serious ones but I’m enjoying letting information come to me randomly via the folks that I know… its also an around-a-bout laziness!

On another matter, yesterday morning I went to the veggie patch in my back garden to rescue the last courgette of the season (of 2 – but they’re alarmingly huge) from predator snails and early frosts. Aside from this magnificent tuber I found a small headless duck. One wing separated off to one side. Over the years I’ve found many a dead pigeon splashed in feathers, the victim’s of various cats. This duck carcass was especially gruesome as I’d not seen its kind. Black, soggy from overnight rain, intact but for its head having been ripped off. Its legs had an appearance of rubberyness to them. As if they’d feel like jelly to the touch. It made me feel squeamish, so much so that I just left it there and went to work.

I was thinking about how to deal with it. My first instinct was to give it a decent burial, this being what my Mum and I would do in years past. Or should I abandon sentiment and throw it in the bin? Why was I questioning this… The natural order seems that it’d be sensible to bury it. That way it could give its bits to the worms and plants in a decent fertilising way. So should I bury it in my vegetable patch in preparation for next year’s crops? That way too, perhaps I’d have the practical experience of discovering just how long bones last in the ground. But we don’t bury the body parts from the animals we eat. We don’t add our meaty bits to the compost heap… is it dangerous for some reason? Or is it because meat in the compost heap also attracts rats and then these godless sewer beasts may do anything to feed that newfound taste!

I have don’t fear rats in my garden though – something far more dreadful. You see, this evening when I returned and went out to deal with said dead duck. It was gone but not its wing. In the dark… imagine the chills to that crawled my spine, knowing that with only one wing, that headless duck with its soggy claws could not have got far… I only hope it’s the snails that suffer its vengeance.

Not much of the above would make for suitable photographic support so instead here is a picture of the courgette I rescued. And a photo taken at Burning Man that shows a planet of courgette type entities.

By the skies above I so truly hope life finds you all well!

Much love