Numinosity

By S.L. Coyne

Numinosity: A Spiritual Journey in three Acts, describes the interaction of events which manifest in Thalia's life. She remembers a series of lessons her father had taught over the course of growing up and wonders if she could ever be like him.

Numinosity begins to explore the Celtic spiritual concept of pilgrimage. Thalia realises that all of life is a pilgrimage. The book is ideal for those trying to work out what on earth life is all about.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Apr 21, 2017
• ISBN: 9781326989057

Book preview

Numinosity

Numinosity

S.L. Coyne © 2017

All rights reserved

ISBN: 978-1-326-98905-7

Contents

Numinosity

S.L. Coyne © 2017

All rights reserved

ISBN: 978-1-326-98905-7

Contents

The Characters

Introduction

Act I ~ Body

1 ~ The Lighthouse

2 ~ The Branches of a Tree

3 ~ The Ultimate Duality

4 ~ The Hot Air Balloon

Act II ~ Mind

5 ~ The Bees

6 ~ The Wild Horses

7 ~ Love is All Around

8 ~ The Candle and the Flame

Act III

9 ~ The Well

10 ~ The Pilgrimage

11 ~ The Dream and the Numinous

Author Bio

Books by S.L. Coyne

No parts of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means whatsoever without the prior permission of the author and publisher, S.L. Coyne

A record of this publication is available from the British Library.

Third Edition 2017

Publisher: S.L. Coyne

Numinosity

A Spiritual Journey in Three Acts

by

S L Coyne

Contents

The Characters 6

Introduction7

Act 1 ~ Body

1: The Lighthouse10

2: The Branches of a Tree42

3: The Ultimate Duality69

4: The Hot Air Balloon93

Act II ~ Mind

5: The Bees123

6: The Wild Horses159

7: Love is All Around196

8: The Candle and the Flame232

Act III ~ Spirit

9: The Well259

10: The Pilgrimage293

11: The Dream and the Numinous325

The Characters

Zeus - Father

Hera - Mother

Thalia - Daughter

Apollo - Uncle and best friend of Zeus

Loki - The boss

Freyja - Housemate and best friend of Thalia

Juno - Best mature friend of Thalia

Isis - Colleague of Thalia

Doctors 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10

Maman Brigitte – Ward Matron

Numinous (adj)Having a strong religious or

spiritual quality.

Divinity (n)1. The state or quality of being

divine

2. A god or goddess.

(COED)

Introduction

The universe is the greatest teacher humans have and we need to listen now more than ever. This book contains eleven ‘lessons’, although there are others hidden amongst its pages and, as in life, it is for the seeker to find them. The things we need to learn are generic but everyone is different and we each have different, personal lessons to learn, however hard or easy they may be.

This book is for all those who feel discontent with their life. Sometimes we realise there is something lacking in our life and acknowledge the disconnectedness of all. This realisation can come in many forms, from tiredness to lack of enthusiasm for our job to our very food that tastes of nothing. We see ourselves as trees in winter whose leaves have gone, with no glimmer of spring to awaken us.

We feel alone and yet, despite all the nothingness that surrounds us, we know there is something more. There is something inside that burns, a flame. There is something calling us and we yearn for it but do not know where to begin to find it. We may have searched for it in cathedrals and temples, or we may have sought it in one spiritual book or another. Yet these esoteric beliefs and practices often only add to our confusion and nothing fulfils us.

Our senses see through the lies of governments and institutions, for we know that the real truth lies within. The solution to our discontent is clear - though hard to admit to ourselves - but that journey to the ultimate truth we must take alone. So, what follows in this story, about a normal life of confusion and discontent, are the signposts we can follow on the path that will lead us to our destiny.

Then we shall all meet at the final destination and we shall recognise each other in the light, for we are divine and we are love.

Act I ~ Body

Throw your heart out in front of you and run ahead to catch it.

(Arabic proverb)

1 ~ The Lighthouse

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

(Chinese proverb)

We are born and then we die. In between we have a journey and we live. This journey took me seven years and so it begins...

Glancing at the clock on the dashboard, I realise it’s going to take me a long time to get to Wales. It is September, just the beginning of the academic year. There is that buzz of learning in the air but too early for jumpers. The sun still has heat in its rays but it is setting quickly now over the Wolds. I want to be hitting Peterborough before it completely sets but that would mean driving constantly with the setting sun in my eyes. Its orange glare limits my sight as I pull the visor down.

As I open the windows to let the air in I see that the farmers have been harvesting. The dry dust of corn and wheat smoulder along in the air, creating pockets of harvested smog on the road. The drivers slow down on the A16. We know all too well that a farmer can pull out from a farm or side road without a care in the world, his single thought to get the harvest in before the weather changes. The danger passes and we pick up pace again.

‘I told them not to go,’ I say out loud to myself and bang on the steering wheel. The passing driver shakes his head at me. I don’t care what he thinks. Why assume what I’m angry about? Why do strangers think they know what’s going on with you? Then suddenly I have to slam on the brakes as a farmer pulls out from a freshly ploughed field and I screech to a halt. He looks at me completely oblivious that he didn’t even slow down at the stop sign. This is farming country so it’s my fault. I sigh and glance at his empty field all freshly earthed, the soil churned into swirls, and for a brief moment the air smells wet, sweet from the contrast of dry corn and wheat. The crows swarm round the newly ploughed earth, seeing what morsels are left.

These roads are not new for me to travel, though this particular route was new. I had come home and from the first instant I walked through the door I could sense something. Then I had received the call I had been thinking about all week, since the moment they had said they were going home to Ireland. All my mother Hera had said was, We are in Bangor Hospital, please come. My father had been taken seriously ill on the ferry somewhere in the Irish Sea, closer to Wales than to Ireland. They had wanted to airlift him to hospital but, in and out of consciousness, he had refused and wanted to remain on the ferry to land, any land.

My housemate Freyja had quickly checked the route for me while I grabbed an overnight bag and threw clothes into it. I had no idea what I would need or how long I would be gone for. Freyja had given me the route planner and I glanced at it as I reversed the car out of the drive.

I had told them constantly not to go but Zeus had insisted. Why?

My father Zeus was a determined man. When he set his mind to something he did it regardless of what his wife and daughter might think. He had spent most of his life in the navy, often away seeing the sights of new countries and situations of strife. He was always calm and nothing seemed to shake him. The first time I saw Zeus cry was when he heard that John Lennon had died. How do I follow that?

You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one...

We all age together and children become their parents’ carers, yet Zeus had always been strong. His stubborn personality had made sure they had gone to Ireland. My mother Hera did not want to go because he had collapsed a month before in the garden. He had been planting rose bushes bought on a journey with me to Walsingham, but a tired feeling had seized him and he’d lain down on the grass unable to move. His great strength had gone. Zeus was tired.

He loved Ireland. If he had a home it would be there, right on the south-west coast overlooking the wild Atlantic. The sea dominated his life. He’d worked on it and he loved it. They could have flown to Ireland but Zeus had insisted they go by boat, a ferry from Holyhead in Wales to Dun Loaghaire. He would drive as Hera had never learned to. I could never understand this because for me driving meant freedom. Zeus had told her she was too nervous to drive and maybe he was right, but now we shall never know. Her excuse now was she was too old and, besides, Zeus did the driving.

Thank heavens for cars. The car is a home, it takes me from where I sleep to where I work. It is an object of status for some but for me it is a necessity. I call my car Jada the Jazz Dragon. I didn’t go to a garage to buy her. I picked her out online and chose her, then waited for her to sail from Japan. I ordered her as I wanted the deep emerald green. Seven miles were on her clock when she finally came to me; fifty-two thousand were on her now. When I had brought Jada home from the garage, Freyja had given me a white Irish beanie toy with a green shamrock on him for luck. I called him Podraic or Pod. There he sat on the dashboard for every journey and every road I went down. He was friendship and he was always there. When I showed my parents Jada, Zeus had said, Well, you’re on your way now, my girl. She’d had that new car smell of fresh dreams and excitement. She started first time, every time. I was safe inside Jada as I travelled through the night. The car and I have aged together.

I had bought Jada in my first year of teaching. Freyja was saving for a house while I had to buy a car! I had to have something that could take me from A to B. It wasn’t a spur-of-the-moment thing either. I needed a car, or so I told myself. The car is freedom and I knew I had to have something to show for this career I found myself in. I see now that past actions can determine our futures.

I fill Jada up in Boston and know that a full tank will get me to Wales. I need to reach the A1 and soon. The A1 runs from London at St Paul’s Cathedral, though it originally began at Angel. It is the spine of Britain, slicing through the heart of this land connecting London to Edinburgh, two ancient capitals connected by an ancient route that I am crossing to get to the other side. I am going east to west, the opposing sides of England. In the east of England, roads are paths that take an hour to get to a decent motorway that will lead somewhere. In the Fens, you are trapped by nothingness, the sky and the air.

As I cross over the A16 and travel across the Wolds, I watch the changing colours of an early autumn sunset. England is in fashion in the autumn. The fields and trees take on a new life. The clothes of autumn are in full season now with leaves of red, yellow, orange, amber and brown while some leaves still remain green. The evergreens get ready for winter. The beauty of the natural world sits amongst tarmac roads of freedom and bondage, roads well-travelled those seeking holidays with family, travelling to see loved ones and by commuters.

Travelling and moving: we are constantly moving but do we know where we are going? Our journeys can be long or short with many lessons along the way. All of us have something to learn. Instructions for life are like borders and lines on a map; places we do not go and things we do not see, sights we miss either by choice or life’s design. Usually we find the map of our life and draw a straight line from where we are to where we want to be and who we want to be. This map of life is lost on me. I am somewhere on my map that I didn’t want to be. Zeus had no beliefs but knew there was ‘something’ whilst my mother Hera believed in ‘spirit’. As for me, I am stuck somewhere between the two. My choice at university showed as much. I chose Religious Studies which was like applying for several different degrees all at once: I studied Sociology of Religion, Psychology, Anthropology, Philosophy and Theology, not to mention the six major world religions and all their history. I searched and searched but still didn’t find anything that filled my hunger, just more questions.

I love autumn but hate September; because I’m a teacher it is my least favourite month. My whole life has been academia, whether as student or teacher. Everything always happens in term time and nothing ever seems to happen in holidays apart from always planning for the next term. There’s marking past papers and coursework and planning for the future, but never stopping to assess the present. I never learned to enjoy the present. I do not know what it means to enjoy the here and now, to sit in a park in the present and not think about past or future.

Just think for the moment.

Stay in this moment.

Watch the clouds in this moment.

Feel the breeze upon my skin in this moment.

Hear the trees rustling in this moment.

Smell the air and acknowledge its taste on my breath as I breathe in and out.

Instead, I plan and I mark and now I drive to a place I have never been. A new journey, a new stepping stone. A new road to go down. A pilgrimage?

My housemate Freyja is also a teacher, yet she loves the planning and marking. She is content with the past and the future. She is strong and determined. If Freyja wants something she will work towards it. It may be a struggle, nothing is easy, but she always gets what she wants eventually. Her questions are always answered whereas mine are never answered, instead only more questions grow out of the unanswered silence. I am determined and strong too but there is definitely something awry with my path. I am old enough to know better. If I were a hobbit, I’d have come of age.

Am I lost on my path? Have I taken a wrong road somewhere? This path I’m on is not a happy one. Yet are you supposed to be happy on your path? I have been doing what was expected. I have been to college and university, got my degrees and student loans, bought a new car, and presumably the next stop is mortgage and house then marriage and children. These last few might come all together but the others have all been ticked off, so at least I must be on the last stretch. That is the path, right?

As I reach for my sunglasses, the glare of the autumn sun blinds my view as I think of the paths I have travelled. These roads that I journey on now are at least roads that lead somewhere. They are not new roads but ancient paths marched on by passing Roman legions on their way to the next conquest. Their roads are not so busy now. Many people have left for the cities and, like wild geese returning, the generations use them once or twice a year, the years fading into decades of holidays and Christmas family duties.

Driving across the country, watching the road but not accepting the changing colours of the sunset, I am already with Zeus as he fights for life. We are both travelling, though I had thought I knew my destination. Zeus never cried for his, he never wanted to know. I think of Zeus. He loves life and he lives it in the now. He was never one for planning. The only time he did plan was when a party or a special occasion had to be prepared for, but generally life was spontaneous - like the time he came home from work late and declared to my mother, grandmother and me, Get in the car, you must see this comet.

Halley’s Comet was a once-in-a-lifetime event and Zeus loved this kind of thing, especially when his loved ones watched the wonder with him. At the Halley’s Comet event, we had driven out of the orange neon flare of the sleeping town, then clambered up a hill on the Wolds and watched as a family the romantic majesty of the heavens. Three generations stood in silence on a cool spring evening staring into the darkness and blinking with the shimmering of intermittent stars.

The total solar eclipse on the 11th of August, 1999, was another such occasion. The mystery of the heavens always intrigued Zeus. He loved wonder and nature, all that the Earth had to offer both in mystery and pleasure. These were natural mysteries, something that could be quantified, tried and tested again and again; the comets, the eclipse, they all come around again so we can plan their times and calculate their paths. Life, on the other hand, cannot be quantified. But it can be qualified. The quality of life must be enjoyable and Zeus certainly knew this. In watching the total eclipse of the sun, he had said:

Turn your face to the sun and the shadows fall behind you. (Maori proverb)

I had learned a lot from Zeus but I did not heed his zest for life. I planned too much and worried for the future, for the past and most certainly the present. He knew about people and they made him smile. Once, on a break from university, he had asked what I was studying. I didn’t want to go into depth about everything so I just said ‘sociology’ at which he smiled. Come with me and I will show you sociology.

Zeus had never been to university and in my naïve youth I rudely assumed that I knew more than him. We walked to town and then he suddenly stopped, turning his head up and looking at a tall building reaching for the clouds. He stood watching for a few moments until passers-by also began to look up to see what he was looking at. After five minutes, there were at least five or six other people looking up at the tall building with my father. I watched as more people came and without a word they too stopped in their tracks to gaze up at a tall building and the clouds. About fifteen minutes and twenty people later, Zeus suddenly shrugged his shoulders and placed his hands in his pockets, gave a little ‘Mmm’ and walked away. A wry smile half-formed on his mouth as the group of people just stared at us walking away. No words were spoken. No-one asked what he was doing. As we walked away, the group of people were still there staring up at the sky. I turned to Zeus expectantly.

"That’s sociology, Thalia. That is people. That is society. People are always so concerned with going from here to there, planning next week, worrying about the past, trying to construct the future. But the past is gone and we cannot change it, and the future is out of our hands. The only time we have is now. Look at all those people who came to stand with us. They had plans this morning but they stopped on the path and looked up. They stood in this moment and changed their schedule for the day. Standing at a street corner staring into the clouds wasn’t on their ‘to do’ lists.

"We miss so much, Thalia,