Free to Fly: Life Is a Journey It Can Take You Anywhere You Choose to Go

By Jean Bisbey

If you have ever wondered what life is all about, this is the book for you. If, like me, you have spent your life seeking answers to those imponderable questions like why does God allow so much suffering, is religion the answer, or is there something more important which isnt emphasized in church or school? Does life have to be such a struggle? Can I have any say in the matter, or is my fate already sealed? This book may well give you ideas to ponder. Whether you are a Christian or atheist, humanist or agnostic, you will discover one overriding factor which should never be ignored. We are all in this together in a way that twenty-first-century science is revealing with breathtaking speed. The quantum age is with us, offering us vistas of a new way of thinking and the potential of a new way of living.
If, on the other hand, you enjoy a tender love story, this book will not disappoint you. Suicide, murder, a bit of sleuthing also fits into the jigsaw of this story.
I am not a scientist nor a mathematician. Equations mean nothing to me, but to read of quantum mechanics is mind-boggling and joyful. To learn about the wonder and mystery of the universe and mans scientific striving to understand at breakneck speed is the gateway to cosmic awareness. This book, above all else, highlights the power within each one of us. This is the power of the mind and its manifestation in our thoughts for good or ill.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Nov 28, 2016
• ISBN: 9781524666583

Jean Bisbey

Most of the author’s life has been spent asking awkward questions in the hope of finding credible answers. She gives a prelude to this in her two miniautobiographicals, Kindle publications Keep Searching and Widening the Search, both of which sparked an interest to take it further. This book is the result. In it, she not only highlights the suffering and concerns common to everyone, but also discovers a powerful way to tackle them. Her short acquaintance with quantum mechanics opens an exciting new way of thinking to ensure a happier life in spite of the burden carried. Thought is the manifestation of the mind and its power is awesome, and that is probably why this resultant book has been written in her eighty-ninth year of existence. After a checkered career consisting of many years in civil service to music teaching in Canada where she developed a taste for general teaching, she then returned to Scotland and college to qualify for this and concluded her teaching career as deputy head in a large primary school in the West Midlands. While living in Edinburgh, she became involved in theosophy and enjoyed a short spell as honorary librarian in the Theosophical library there. This gave her such food for thought, which has never left her. Mind may be static, but thought is dynamic with potential available to everyone.

Book preview

Contents

Synopsis of Free to Fly

Acknowledgements

Chapter 1:   An Accidental Meeting

Chapter 2:   Behind Closed Doors

Chapter 3:   Responsible Drinking

Chapter 4:   Everything Affects Everything

Chapter 5:   Actions Speak Louder Than Words

Chapter 6:   The Worm Turns

Chapter 7:   We Know What We Are But Not What We May Be

Chapter 8:   Loose Ends And Dangling Threads

Chapter 9:   Education Is The Kindling Of A Flame, Not The Filling Of A Vessel

Chapter 10:   Life Is A Journey That Can Take You Wherever You Choose To Go

Synopsis of Free to Fly

F ergus, a renowned psychologist, feels so passionate about his beliefs that he wants to change the world or, at least, challenge the Education Authority to some radical thinking on twenty-first-century educational requirements. At the same time, he is subconsciously aware of his own Achilles heel. Reluctant to deal with this so far, it is only when he has an accidental meeting with Sarah in a market town hotel in the Scottish Borders that his vulnerability is sorely put to the test.

Sarah, the daughter of a Scottish minister of the kirk, is locked into a marriage with Clive, a powerful verbal abuser. Without any knowledge or analysis of this particular breed of man-specific power, Sarah, struggling with its stifling effect on her outgoing personality and her natural joy of life, calls upon her Christian values to help her transcend. Sarah is helped by Jamie, a visiting aspirant to the ministry, while Fergus’s deep-rooted beliefs are sustained by Billy, a client with a drinking problem whose suffering confirms Fergus’s belief that a different approach to mental health therapy, such as the type he has to offer, will bring a new and vital aspiration to people’s lives.

Their relationships unfold, Fergus having to deal with an attempted suicide and Sarah having to battle with attempted murder, while the backdrop of a new psychology ensures that, if people are made aware, there really is a clear bright sky out there offering the freedom to fly.

For my stepdaughter, Alison

Acknowledgements

I am indebted to the writings of the psychologist Charles F. Haanel (1855–1949) for his practical working knowledge of the creative process of thought, especially in The Master Key , first published in 1912 and particularly relevant to our present turbulent times. It has been an inspiration to me, serving as my living Bible while writing this Free to Fly .

I also wish to acknowledge my indebtedness and thanks to many bloggers, reviewers, and contributors, especially on the need of philosophy in communication, the ideas of many of whom I have greedily devoured and have probably unashamedly regurgitated in my own works.

I also express my gratitude to Christina Aguilera for her beautiful lyrics of The Voice Within which touch upon the theme of my novel.

Chapter 1

AN ACCIDENTAL MEETING

I n horror, I watched the woman get knocked off balance, hitting the floor defenceless, her handbag escaping from her clutch and spilling its contents indiscriminately over the hotel lobby. I reached her seconds before the receptionist did. God forgive me. This was my doing. A foolish and mindless rush into the hotel to escape a heavy snowstorm outside and a raging mood inside, combined with the force of my solidly powerful six-foot frame, resulted in a collision with this beautiful woman who was now making an instinctive effort to recover her dignity.

Are you all right, Mrs Giles? enquired the anxious receptionist.

I’m fine, Charlie, the woman replied, mustering a reassuring smile.

Simultaneously, the woman and I reached for her purse and the spillage from the handbag. Narrowly escaping a second collision, I groaned. She smiled, looking at me for the first time.

I’m truly sorry, I croaked. Will you ever forgive me?

Easily, she responded, accepting the purse from my hand while regaining her composure. I’m still in one piece.

The receptionist, who had retrieved more of the bag’s scattered contents, returned them to their owner.

Mr Giles rang earlier, he said. He’s stuck in the snowstorm and thinks it unlikely he’ll get home tonight. He suggests you put up here. He’ll see you tomorrow, God willing.

Probably wise, she answered. And then she turned to me and offered her hand.

Sarah Giles.

Fergus MacGregor, I answered, noting the gold-banded finger and the perfectly manicured nails. I owe you. Since you are going to be here tonight and I’m already registered, will you dine with me. Please?

There is no need—

There is every need, I interrupted. I must redeem myself. I’m not in the habit of knocking down beautiful women.

The receptionist approached almost apologetically. Dave has just phoned to say he and the boys will be a bit late. Will you feel up to it?

Intrigued, I looked at Sarah with raised brows. She laughed before turning to the poker-faced Charlie.

I’ll be fine, Charlie. Mr MacGregor has invited me to dine with him tonight. He feels a need to expunge his guilt.

Call me Fergus, I suggested, while deftly leading her out of reception and into the bar lounge.

The whirling snowflakes outside drew us to armchairs by the windows that offered a view of snow-shrouded cars and white-carpeted whinstone cobbles of the square. At one of the large windows, a kilted figure was photographing the scene, while a party of four revellers in high spirit were in the far corner. In the other corner was a man, his face hidden behind a broadsheet. All of this was but a momentary diversion from the figure settling into the armchair opposite, separated from me by a low coffee table. I felt the familiar inner glow of response to beauty, as she was beautiful.

You look every inch a Highlander, she was saying, but where’s the kilt and the accent?

The kilt’s in the cupboard, but the accent’s still there, I said. It’s just well-tamed.

For reasons of?

Pragmatism, I suppose. I lecture a great deal in different countries to varying audiences.

I’d earmarked you as medical.

I could say sort of, I suppose. What about you? Has your identity anything to do with Dave and the boys?

She laughed, revealing perfect teeth and dimples. I could say sort of, she answered.

You are giving plenty of scope for my imagination.

Which will reveal more of you than of me, she said.

Her eyes sparkled as they met mine, and her laughter was infectious. Encouraged by the ambience of the setting, the piquancy of my companion, and the brief detachment from emotional anxiety, I determined to interest and entertain. Who was this woman who had beauty of form, of colour, of movement – all of which played to my basic instinct? She was slim with the right curves in the right places, blonde without brashness, her eyes the colour and shine of a polished chestnut. And she had a suppleness of body expression from the tilt of her head to the sweep of her lashes to the curve of her arm as she placed her mobile on the coffee table between us. Her untarnished beauty, enhanced by natural grace, emanated a youthful innocence. She was a corker, to whom I was responding like a sniffing dog.

You have the hands of an artist, the demeanour of an aristocrat, and the voice of an angel, I suggested. "Which line should I pursue?’

Forget the aristocrat.

We have one thing in common, I said. We are Scottish. Shall we take it from there?

As a descendant of the great Rob Roy, I take it you are from the Trossachs?

Born and bred there, I replied, lifting my drink in silent salute.

I used to holiday there with my mammy’s mammy, as they say, until I was about six or seven, she said. "I missed it very much. My father is a Lowlander who whisked my mother from her hielan’ hame to live here in the border country."

You like it here?

With a shrug of the shoulders and outstretched open palms, she replied, With the Eilden Hills; Abbotsford housing the spirit of Sir Walter Scott; the River Tweed; and glorious ancient ruined abbeys, how could I not but love it – every inch of it? Then she voiced in a softer tone her love of the Tweed: ‘Delightful stream! Tho’ now along thy shore, / When spring returns in all her wonted pride, / The shepherd’s distant pipe is heard no more, / Yet here with pensive ease could I abide.’

I picked up where she left off: ‘Far from the stormy world’s tumultuous roar, / To muse upon thy banks at eventide.’

We left it there, making no voiced comment but beginning a conversation with our eyes. The moment was rent by strange sounds coming from the dining room: an oboe inspiring a pitch match on various instruments, trills from a keyboard, a mike being tested, a drumbeat, and a great deal of chatter.

Ah, I said. Dave and the boys?

That’s right.

And where do you fit in? No, don’t tell me. Let me guess. Cello? Viola?

I sing.

And what do you sing?

Ballads and blues, and folk when requested.

Interesting but disappointing, I teased.

The man in the corner had lowered his broadsheet, revealing ginger hair and a toothbrush moustache.

There I was deciding you must be either a spy or a criminal, I said.

What on earth gave you that idea?

Hadn’t you noticed you were being watched? That ginger-haired man in the corner who’s been hiding behind his broadsheet has been keeping his eyes on us since we came in here.

As a practising psychologist, I found interpreting body movements and facial expressions to be second nature. Sarah seemed genuinely surprised by my assertion and, dare I think, agitated. I felt I’d pressed a button somewhere.

That’s enough about me, she said.

With what I was to recognise as a characteristic gesture, she spread her arms, palms up and shoulders slightly raised, her eyes wide and enquiring. What about you?

I examine minds.

Now that’s interesting.

I detected no sarcasm—neither mild nor disguised. It’s not just the body that needs doctoring, I said.

Doctoring minds must be difficult, she said.

Why do you think that?

Body ills are so obvious.

But the mind?

It’s so secret, so personal, so difficult to invade.

My senses quickened. Was this possible, a beautiful woman thinking beyond the end of her nose?

Mind is the sustaining, energising, all-pervading spirit of the universe. Then I quickly added, I didn’t make that up. It was said by Sir Ambrose Fleming, the father of modern electronics and son of a Congregational minister. What I learned in my studies about the mind is that it belongs neither to the physical nor to the emotional. The mind is creative and has created for us the conditions and environment we find ourselves in today. The secret of power and achievement depends on what and how we think.

I was warming to my subject and was rising to a promising bait.