The Spirit of the Scarecrow

By Robert Connolly

One strange evening, an alien spaceship descends on a tiny rural village. A week later, an animated scarecrow intervenes in a terrible crime. Only one man knows the truth behind these events. Robby led a quiet life, admiring nature and rambling with his dogs, before he was contacted by a silent voice in his head. Now he must overcome his instincts and connect with his spiritual self in order to prevent a tragedy and ensure that justice is done. The Spirit of the Scarecrow is a philosophical tale of love, spirituality, the progress of humanity and the curse of greed.

• Language: English
• Publisher: A H Stockwell
• Release date: Feb 8, 2019
• ISBN: 9780722349090

Robert Connolly

I am an artist by training and a graduate of the Royal College of Art, and I have worked in the art world as a curator and organiser of exhibitions for the past 30 years; excepting brief episodes as a civil servant (eating lunch at the same table as serial murderer Dennis Nilsen), working for an American construction company building Canary Wharf in London, and of course, in the funeral industry. As a performance artist (think Marina Abramovic, Gilbert & George) I beat Lady Gaga to it by 31 years by wearing a suit made of meat at the Slade School of Art postgraduate private view in 1979: http://edibleguest.blogspot.co.uk I currently run an arts charity that provides studio space for artists in London, and divide my time between there and Oslo.

Book preview

The Spirit of the Scarecrow

Robert Connolly

ARTHUR H. STOCKWELL LTD

Torrs Park, Ilfracombe, Devon, EX34 8BA

Established 1898

www.ahstockwell.co.uk

Copyright © 2019 Robert Connolly

First published in Great Britain, 2013

Republished in Great Britain, 2019

Digital version converted and distributed by

Andrews UK Limited

www.andrewsuk.com

The moral rights of the author have been asserted.

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy,recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright holder.

Cover design Jacqueline Abromeit.

The Road to Enlightenment

Out of poverty I have sprung,

That circumstantial trap wherein

Untold songs lie in agitated sleep unsung,

Awaiting illumination to erupt from the spiritual haven within.

I was born in Dublin city in troubled

Times, poverty’s child,

When pneumonic plague was decimating

little children in merciless execution,

But I, somehow, survived the onslaught raging wild

And I was speedily moved south to the

Sliabh Blume mountains of Laois, far from

the plague’s culling persecution.

And there I grew to adulthood thru’

austerity’s years,

Spilling the sweat of my teens in toil

among fertile fields,

Where the eyes of God serenely smiled and

the notes of joy were sweet music to my ears,

And oh! What a feast of knowledge those

distant memories still yields.

I studied long and hard, but pressing

family commitments interrupted my evolving pace,

As my bond of love for siblings made of me a slave,

Whose every ounce of energy spilled in

Toiling sweat helped to feed each hungry face,

And memories were all that was left for me to save.

In later years I wandered aimlessly from

job to job and sacrificed all in my

prolonged search for the enigmatic purpose of existence,

and most importantly of all to discover the

reason why God endowed man with the miraculous

gift of creative intelligence, his mysterious legacy.

I spilled my mental sweat in exhausting

bouts of deep thought and committed

myself to the task regardless of distance,

and after untold configurations of mental

complexities I was duly rewarded with

enlightenment and the impact of its veracity.

And now I know what I am, who I am and

why I am and the reason why I have creative ability,

and that knowledge elevates me to a higher

plain of thought beyond compare,

Where the essence of existence is simplicity,

And every human being has the ability, thru’

their creative mentality, to seek the

liberating truth if they but dare.

Chapter One

What’s important about any one day in a lifetime? Nothing except unforgettable memories of events that took place in that pulsating breath of time. We all have such memories stored away on the hard disks of our mentalities, recalled from time to time to generate laughter and to ignite interesting conversations and even to reminisce nostalgically on the childhood days of sweet innocence. But how did we acquire the ability to think and store memories and recall them at will?

Because human beings have been endowed with creative intelligence, but why?

There is nothing that exists without a reason, so there must be a reason for creative intelligence. We wouldn’t be able to create without a memory bank to feed our ability to think. Is it simply accidental? No! Mind is at work plotting our progress through time and reason is at the heart of it. This is my field of study and I have a story to relate concerning my encounter with the unknown. My name is Robby, the pet form of Robert, and my story begins one cold, frosty, snowbound Christmas Eve.

I took my two dogs, Patch and Pedro, my faithful friends, for a late-night ramble to a nearby reservoir. We walked along the outside of the perimeter wall to a conifer wood that extended along the western edge of the lake for its full length, about 400 metres, with its width about half that length. Beyond the wood a wild, desolate, snow-covered moor stretched for miles, a lonely landscape that bore the brunt of winter’s icy breath. A week before I had noticed sheep arriving in the wood from the moorland hills to shelter from the icy north-east wind. It was a bad sign and a day and a half later snow arrived in the wake of the wind. Overnight the snow froze and during the following days snowfalls were frequent, followed by hard overnight frosts. I felt really sorry for the sheep. What an unenvied existence, I thought, forced to spend their short lives on an impoverished, desolate moor, foraging to merely stay alive! How fortunate we humans are in comparison! Their experience taught me never to complain as long as I had an adequate amount of food and a place to shelter.

As we walked alongside the perimeter wall the frozen snow crunched under my boots and momentarily echoed in the stillness of the night. It was 11.30 and families would have been celebrating the Christmas festival in different ways, some in family groups in their homes, others attending late-night services in churches, and the revellers in pubs and clubs enjoying the entertainment. I was struggling to grasp the religious significance of and feel inspired by the ancient event, but my deep sympathy for the plight of the sheep resting quietly in the central area of the wood kept impinging on my thoughts. When we reached the end of the perimeter wall I stopped and allowed the dogs to sniff around the fringes of the wood, investigating various scents and responding to their instinctive necessities.

‘What is life all about?’ I remember asking myself aloud just as I had done on numerous occasions in the past. I had already discovered much in the field of deep thought, but much more needed to be uncovered from the abyss of the mentality and my goal was the enlightenment of deepest truth. I felt a deep affinity with the unfortunate sheep simply, I supposed, because I had suffered severe hardships in my life, cold, hunger and sometimes homelessness and of course the mental anguish that partners all aspects of deprivation, but something deep within me always urged me on and even inspired me to write the following poem:

DILEMMA

I have dreams wherein I dwell

Sometimes in heaven, sometimes in hell.

Between the two a mind possessed

Of noble thoughts and strange unrest,

Where powers meet and disagree

With life’s bliss and simplicity.

Conflicts strife, confusions trend,

The mind’s dilemma the breach to mend.

I didn’t realise at the time just how important the words of this little poem would prove to be many years later, after I had plunged into the deep recesses of the mind in my search for clues that would point me in the right direction and hopefully culminate in the ultimate revelation of enlightenment.

The dogs returned to my side after they had satisfied their curiosities and their needs and we began to retrace our steps along the perimeter wall overlooking the reservoir. I stopped on the way to admire the silvery moon and the heavenly stars scattered in the empty expanse beyond. The surface of the lake had turned to ice and illuminated by the moon resembled a giant, empty skating rink where I imagined invisible ghosts might be silently indulging a spiritual pleasure free from worldly constraints.

As I was thus engaged I noticed something far distant in the northern sky, and from that instant until the object disappeared from sight in the distant southern sky I felt sure that no more than three seconds elapsed. It resembled a glowing ball of fiery orange surrounded by a halo of bright blue and the whole measured about a metre in diameter. Its speed must have been phenomenally fast to cover such a distance in such a short space of time. I was momentarily astounded and delighted by the event. I guessed it was either a meteorite or an asteroid. It had an enlightening impact on me. I felt privileged to have witnessed such an unexpected happening, perhaps even a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence.

I kept the image alive in my mind as the three of us returned home, where I, without delay, put pen to paper to briefly describe what I had seen, and the following short poem sufficed for the moment. I later composed a longer poem describing the UFO as an asteroid.

A DYING STAR

One night I saw from heaven fall a dying

Star,

Across the moonlit sky it sped a burning

Scar,

Brightly glowing orange and blue,

It was a rare event,

But I only caught a fleeting glimpse

Before its life was spent.

It was an unforgettable, momentary sighting, a treasured memory, and strangely it had an enlightening effect on my writing output, my poetic compositions and particularly on my field of study at the time, ‘Aspects of Truth’: an effect that erupted into the flowering of enlightenment less than a year later. The enlightenment was as unexpected as the fleeting glimpse of the incinerating asteroid and as silent, but it was dreamlike, although I was wide awake and working on the composition of a poem at the time. I suddenly experienced an exhilarating liberation of my spiritual self from the imprisoning constraints of the natural, instinctive processes of my mind. I was able to see my spiritual self, a bright, misty-grey spectre of myself, as it began to grow upwards out of my mentality to a gigantic height and stood astride the Earth, revealing to me through its spiritual eyes all the connecting aspects of knowledge concerning the beautiful Earth and its vast, complicated ecosystem, including the reasons for all the Earth’s pulsating life forms, past and present, and most importantly the reason for man’s acquisition of creative intelligence.

How long this moment of enlightenment lasted I couldn’t say; it was a timeless vacuum from which I emerged truly enlightened and my mentality was newly energised by my insight into the scientific evolution of life and the destiny of man. I embraced my two dogs, my most faithful companions sitting on either side of me on the settee, and reminded them of my great debt of gratitude for their unswerving devotion to me and all the wonderful qualities embodied in that devotion.

The moment of enlightenment strengthened my resolve to explore deeper into the cavernous depths of mind in my search for the primeval truth of man and his evolutionary advance to the present, and most importantly of his ever evolving creative mentality and the reason for it. Thereafter I devoted many hours to making adjustments to conclusions held in mental abeyance and re-examining theoretical ideas stored in a state of limbo under the probing illumination of the new enlightenment of truth. I felt like the captain of a ship on a long voyage through a stormy, uncertain sea suddenly emerging into calm, sun-swept waters and being spiritually overwhelmed by a euphoric tide of caressing relief.

I thought briefly of my relationship with my ex-partner several years before. It was an encounter based on physical attraction and lacked mental cohesion. I was and still am a deep thinker and my great interest was the accumulation of knowledge on all subjects. She was primarily a leisure and pleasure seeker. First into a pub or club and last out was her ideal night out whereas I was more inclined to be last in and first out. The relationship was fiery and didn’t last long. My two dogs, six months and fifteen months old at the time, were part of the problem. I wouldn’t forsake them and I wouldn’t even consider leaving them in her care temporarily. I knew only too well what she was capable of. So, when the moment of parting arrived, I was left with no option other than to take them with me. We suffered hardship together and became bonded, close bosom friends for life through our struggles.

I had no regrets. They restricted my lifestyle, but that was a price I was willing to pay in return for their wonderful qualities. They proved to be an asset rather than a burden. As for my ex-partner, she reaped what she sowed, misery. I had had brief liaisons with other potential female partners but I had yet to meet my ideal soulmate. Perhaps my present platonic affair would develop and pleasantly surprise me. Her name was Autumn, after her birth season. She was a nature lover like me and loved dogs as I did. My dogs liked her too, so the signs were good.

During the springtime of the new year following my unforgettable experience with the revelation of enlightenment I set off alone on a ramble across the high moors, equipped with backpack, rambling pole, binoculars and camera. An hour before leaving I had taken my dogs for their morning ramble around the reservoir and through the woodland. I had already decided not to take them with me on my longer ramble because of the lambing season already in progress. They had grown accustomed to my departures alone and seemed instinctively to understand.

It was a glorious, sunny, Sunday morning and as I emerged from the wood along the western edge of the reservoir I could already hear the sublime notes of rising and descending larks from the high moor ahead of me. Iceberg-like cumulus clouds, sparsely scattered, drifted lazily across the sun-swept, azure sky from south to north, in the same direction as I was going. As I wandered deeper into the moorland the larks’ cascading notes fell joyously to my listening ears. Intermittently the distant, melancholy calls of seasonal curlews echoed through the untroubled air, as did also the laughing calls of resident grouse from near and far.

These endearingly nostalgic sounds were complemented by the continuous bleating of ewes and their lambs from all directions, and they together with all the other sounds formed an orchestra of music all around me as I stood on a rocky outcrop, from where the rolling moor swept away from me in a circular extension like a withered plain. I surveyed the desolate landscape through my binoculars and sections of the route I would be traversing were plainly visible. A couple of miles north-west of where I stood another rocky outcrop rose above the moor. It was a large, uneven circle of craggy rocks and large boulders surrounding a flat central area that ramblers called ‘the Crater’, which it resembled. I had been there many times over the years. It would be my next stop where I would lunch, rest up a while and do a little work with my pencil and pad. After adjusting my backpack and with the sounds of spring all around me I set off at a leisurely pace towards the Crater.

Rambling was one of my favourite activities. Occasionally I rambled with a group, but mostly I walked alone, except for the company of my faithful friends on daily walks. I loved the tranquillity of what some people would describe as the loneliness of the wilderness; I had never felt lonely in this seemingly empty landscape. I had a deep affinity with the Earth and its vast, pulsating diversity of life forms. I have always been and always will be a nature lover at heart. So perhaps that is the key factor when considering the loneliness of wild places.

The trail meandered like a stream over the wild moor, sometimes twisting through rock-strewn areas, looping around bog-holes and fissures, criss-crossing drainage dykes and cutting through oozing swampy patches. Less than an hour later I was sitting and leaning against a boulder on the rocky slope leading up to the Crater. The serene tranquillity of the high moor was still pleasantly punctuated by the harmonious sounds of spring. There were bleating ewes and lambs close by, many hidden from view by heather, hollows and rocks.

I mentally detected a feeling of distress in the bleating of a lamb out of sight behind a small cluster of boulders, a short distance from where I was sitting surveying my surroundings. It was being answered by a similarly affected ewe, its mother no doubt, in full view. I decided to investigate and my intuitive suspicion proved to be correct. The cluster of boulders was like a set of giant molar teeth separated from each other by narrow divisions and formed a circle with a hollow centre. They stood about three feet tall and the lamb was trapped in the centre, unable to climb out and equally unable to squeeze through the narrow openings that separated each boulder. The agile, adventurous lamb must have lost its footing and slipped in whilst frolicking among the boulders. The ewe stood nearby watching and bleating worriedly. I reached down into the hollow and caught the lamb by the back of its neck and gently lifted it out. Talking softly and caressing it, I placed it on the ground and watched as it immediately ran to its bleating mother and suckled her for nourishment. The ewe looked at me and bleated in a more gentle tone as if saying ‘thank you’ in an instinctive manner. When the lamb had satisfied its need both ambled away towards the open moor and the ewe paused several times to look back in my direction. I picked up a loose rock and by slamming it against the sides of two boulders forming the circle I managed, after a number of attempts, to break chunks off each boulder, thereby widening the division between them sufficiently to allow a lamb to escape should the folly ever be repeated. I felt good at having been a source of relief for the ewe and the rescuer of her lamb. I was glad too for both of them that I had decided on that route the previous evening.

I returned to my resting place and enjoyed a salad sandwich and a couple of pots of black coffee. I then took pencil and pad from my backpack and, after reading a poem that I had been composing during the previous week, I set about making adjustments to the script until it sounded, in my opinion, a thought-provoking description of the moor, its springtime inhabitants and permanent dwellers as well as its unenvied existence. I felt a depth of sympathy for the impoverished state of such a wilderness and a strong affinity with its indefatigable struggle to survive. ‘Does my offering do it justice?’ I uttered, and I decided to read it aloud and try to assess the value or lack of it as I listened to my own voice.

THE LONELY MOOR

Oh lonely moor, impoverished womb of Earth,

Tenaciously struggling to survive

And provide for those that dare to share your

Austere existence

In their brave endeavours to merely stay alive.

How desolate your harrowed face!

How uninspiring your ragged dress!

How lonely your endless plight!

And yet you have delights that surprisingly impress.

The springtime larks rising and descending in fluttering

cascades of heavenly song,

That complement your tireless efforts to weave

The pulsating threads of existence

And soothe the deprivations of your unenvied state

And happy they are to spill their sublime notes of joy

For your all-caressing assistance.

The curlews too seek out your swampy havens of

refuge,

To pledge their union and generate their kind

And from high above they sound their thanks in

melancholy commiserations

And on your scarred and pitted face their sustenance

find.

The grouse and fragmented heather colonies that

shelter and sustain them,

Cling to your enduring breast thru’ the changing

seasons,

As do the hardy clumps of hungry tussock grass,

All dependent on the indefatigable energy of your

spirit of survival for whatever reasons.

You are, oh lonely moor, a wilderness to be admired,

Where foraging sheep in aimless wander roam,

among changing colour patterns in undulating

sweep

And for the grouse, the heather, and tussock grass,

The moorland hare and others you are their all-

endearing,

permanent home.

‘Well,’ I thought aloud, ‘it’s a thoughtful ode and it might please the spirit of the moor,’ and I felt satisfied with my effort to paint with words a picture of the lonely moor. Then using my backpack as a pillow I lay back and looked up into the azure, sun-swept sky watching the cumulus clouds drifting slowly northwards, like upside-down icebergs in an endless sea of blue, and listening to the notes of joy from numerous larks floating upwards through the embracing atmosphere. The intermittent calls of curlews caressed rather than ruffled the senses; the laughing sounds of hidden grouse I interpreted as applause, and likewise the bleating of ewes and lambs. The soothing music and unobtrusive natural sounds lulled my senses to a twilight sleep.

Then suddenly I heard a voice call, ‘Greetings, Robby!’ and my eyes instantly opened wide. I sat up and looked all around, but saw nothing other than ewes and lambs. I decided it must have been a mental aberration. Perhaps someone had used that form of address to me in the recent past and I had somehow released the memory into my subjective mind. The exertion of having walked several miles over rough terrain was probably a contributory factor, I thought to myself, but nevertheless it made me feel a little uneasy. Then almost immediately I heard it again: ‘I greeted you, Robby. Do not be alarmed.’

‘Am I hearing a voice that is real or is it emanating from my own mind?’ I asked myself aloud.

‘Do not be alarmed, Robby. There is nothing wrong with you. You are hearing my voice in your mind. I am alien and quite close, but you cannot see me in my invisible form. I am speaking telepathically to you.’

I was dumbfounded for a timeless moment, struggling to come to terms with what I had just mentally heard. I felt apprehensive about what might be happening to me. Then, trying to compose myself, I asked aloud, ‘If all that I have heard is true, could you give me some sign of your presence being genuine?’

‘Yes,’ the voice in my mind instantly replied. ‘There is a ewe with her lamb standing twenty paces distant from you. I will bring the lamb over to you. It will let you caress it and then it will return to its mother. Will that suffice?’

‘Yes,’ I agreed, and as I watched the lamb in question turned away from its mother and trotted over to where I was sitting and nuzzled my arm.

I caressed its head with my hand for a few seconds before it casually turned and trotted back to its patiently waiting mother. I was undoubtedly impressed. Over the years I had read lots of reports about people being abducted by aliens and being put through strange experiences. I had never actually believed any of them, but now all kinds of questions were queuing in my mind, looking for answers. Here I was all alone on the wild moor in the company of an invisible alien. I wondered if that alien would be the superior intelligent presence I had always tended to visualise it and its kind as, if indeed such beings existed and succeeded in visiting the planet Earth. If that were the case they would receive my highest accolades and admiration. They would have to be super-intelligent forms of life light years ahead of the human race.

With this self-assurance established I put my fears to one side and commented, ‘That is a marvellous example of your power over creatures, what we humans would call miraculous.’ Convinced now of an unseen alien presence, I added, ‘That certainly proves that you exist, even if it is in invisible form.’

‘Invisible here on Earth,’ the silent voice answered, ‘but on our home planet we occupy indestructible, robotic bodies not unlike yours, but not constructed of flesh like yours. Our robotic bodies are made of a substance that is as yet beyond the limits of human comprehension.’

‘Are you implying that you can leave your robotic bodies at will and return without being restricted by time limits?’ I asked, quite intrigued.

‘Yes, that is true. Long, long ago we discovered the answer to the ageing process.’

‘Is your arrival here on the Earth recent or have you been here for some time?’ I enquired out of curiosity tinged with a degree of guilt for being so intrusive.

‘Do not feel embarrassed by your inquisitiveness; it is a natural human trait. I cannot be offended. We have been on the Earth since long before the human race began. I am cloned through family units. We have spread through your diversifying generations down through the ages.’

‘But that’s millions of years!’ I uttered, surprised.

‘We don’t age. We are what humans would describe as forever young. Each clone adopts the physical, changing features of its host until the moment of its maturity and keeps that image through the declining years of the host.’

‘Yes,’ I agreed, suddenly remembering seeing my spiritual self at the moment of my enlightenment; it was my image in a silver-grey apparition. ‘I saw you as my spiritual self in my moment of enlightenment,’ I stated, trying to make sense of all the information that was telepathically delivered and registered in my mentality, whereas I spoke aloud. I found the enlightening information quite fascinating and said so, but I also admitted that I was confused as to the meaning of it all.

‘I know you are,’ the silent voice answered, ‘so I