AN ‘EXPERIENCER’
“You’d better follow the party line little lady, else you’ll never work again. Oh, an’ watch out for yourself, an’ watch out for your family.”
That was Jim Aubrey’s, the Head of MGM’s blackmail threat to me when I found my business manager dead on my bathroom floor while making the movie, ‘The Man Who Loved Cat Dancing.’ (Please read ‘CAREER’ for more details)
Even though I followed the party line and never told a soul, (not public-ally until now), no movie offers came my way. It seemed to me Jim Aubry, (known as ’The Snake’) had me black-listed incase I became too successful, and thus a threat.
So finally I went to see Marty Poll, the corrupt producer of the ‘Man Who Loved Cat Dancing.’ He knew damn well who killed David Whiting, for he was all part of the cover up.
I told him I wasn’t getting any work offers, even though I’d kept to Jim Aubry’s Mantra to the letter, never telling a soul. Either through guilt, remorse, shame – or simply shrewd casting,
he offered me a role in his next production opposite Kris Kristofferson. It was an adaptation from Yokio Mishima’s classic novel, ‘The Sailor Who Fell From Grace with the Sea,’ to be shot in Dartmouth, Devon.
I had to perform the most personal, most vulnerable scene of my acting career so far, in what turned out to be another of those ‘darkest of days’, that we all have, scattered through our life.
My acting challenge was to shine a truthful light on the loneliness depicted in a woman’s private moments, as she pleasures herself within the safety of her bedroom, her inner sanctum.
Could I reach up high enough into Mishima’s beautiful novel to become worthy of its haunting descriptive passages?
Could I bring some erotic, lonely elegance to that taboo subject matter, never touched upon on film back then in the early Seventies?
To pull it off, oh, I so wanted to pull it off! But to do so successfully required all the fearlessness and inner strength that I could muster.
But so worth it , to be a vanguard for the truth –‘Pleasuring oneself is harmless!’
I’d known the crew for many years , having worked with them and the great Douglass Slocum (lighting camera man) on the ‘Servant.’
But the morning I arrived to shoot the ‘pleasuring myself’ scene, the whole crew were so embarrassed, they looked everywhere, mainly at their feet, anywhere but at me.
The director, Lou John Carlino, being a man, was also unable to assist me in my moment of creative feminine endeavour. How could he direct a woman pleasuring herself?
No, I was alone that morning, and once I had glanced downwards to spy a mass of snake tongues slithering up through the floor boards, coating me with fear, I realised it was all up to me and me alone. I had foolishly dug a great snake pit of terror for myself, permeating everything with the stench of fresh nausea, and I had only myself to blame.
In the scene, unbeknownst to this lonely, husbandless woman, her fourteen-year-old son, by removing a notch of wood from his bedroom wall, was able to spy on his mother’s most vulnerable, most lonely, private moments.
The depth of my own vulnerability in the run up to filming such a taboo subject matter, plus the unexpected naked terror of performing such a scene, plus the trepidation of not knowing whether I could pull it off, were, I believe, the causes for my not eating for three days.
Yet once I saw myself on the screen the next evening, watching rushes, (dailies), all the fear, lack of hunger and aloneness I had experienced during shooting, evaporated, because somehow I had managed to pull it off. I’m overly critical watching rushes, so I maintain that the overwhelming relief I felt for ‘Job well done’ triggered what followed.
Perhaps I should preface what follows by clarifying that I rarely drink alcohol and marijuana is the only drug I have ever tried – yet neither while filming, for both distort my timing.
Also up until that moment I had been an adamant, doubtless, rather pompous atheist.
I should also add that most of those who have experienced an epiphany–though that word has religious overtones, mine was more of a more of a spiritual awakening– will surely agree that such a happening usually occurs when a person is at their moment of deepest, darkest hopelessness.
That is the moment when suicide beckons, oh, so seductively.
I had lost all sense of who the hell I was.
Just prior to making the ‘Sailor’ film, I had an abortion. Although my lover was young at that time, I knew he was to become King of Hollywood, and I would’ve been abysmally miscast as his Queen. So at the beginning of shooting the ‘Sailor’ movie, I’d look in the mirror and keep seeing a true murderess, for I killed my baby.
I had lost my moral compass, my dignity, my integrity, my identity. I had lost my husband, my son, my parents, my brothers and sister, all family members, all friends, because helped by the media, they all read guilt into my enforced silence over Whiting’s murder. Once again, ‘Man For All Seasons’ comes to mind – look at what happened to Thomas Moore.
So there was this atheist walking home that early evening beside the Dartmouth estuary, after watching the daily rushes, full to the brim with feelings of job well done, when all of a sudden, a mighty other-worldly energy began pumping up from the pavement, through the soles of my feet.
I began aching with an inhuman strength, ignited by some alien, cosmic power flooding through my whole being. I had never experienced a power remotely like it.
So vast was this Herculean energy that I grew scared and elated simultaneously.
(Alternative words for ‘energy’ will soon be essential). To stop myself from reeling, I steadied myself by grabbing hold of the railing.
As I stood there, overlooking the Dartmouth estuary that midsummer eve, waiting for that feeling of – dare I say it – ‘omnipotence’ to subside, a massive, shimmering cobweb enveloped me.
It was linking up everything I was looking at , everything in my vision – everything.
Every cloud was linked to every star, every star to the rising moon, every seagull linked to every fishing boat, fisherman linked to houses, houses linked to trees, people linked to dogs, cats, and so on.
Dartmouth had become one pulsating organism of glistening threads, linking up all the layers, the absolute wholeness of absolutely everything!
Even more fantastical still, everything within my vision was in 3D, including the giant cobweb with me at its centre, still pulsating with omnipotence.
The effort required to grab the railings again to steady myself, surprised me. The thick density of love spreading through the three-dimensional, shimmering cobweb strands, produced so many pulsating layers, dimensions, realms, that my hand had enormous difficulty locating the railings. … oh, but the love…
“I am your Echo,” throbbed the omniscient, cosmic ‘cobweb’, scaring me to death. My Echo?! My mind throbbed as it tried to assimilate the overwhelming enormity of it all!
How could such frail cobweb strands reverberate with such love?
“We have at last linked up – I am your Echo.”
Once the initial terror of hearing the Echo vibrate for the first time had begun to subside, I tried listening to what it was saying rather than simply being scared witless by the shock of it:
“How can you be alone when everything is One? Your mind hovers above your brain, your spirit hovers above your mind, your soul hovers above your spirit, and every individual soul is linked up to the universal soul – your very centre. Infinite Consciousness. ALONE = ALL ONE.”
This Echo’s words rang true because there, before my very eyes, were those exact same glistening threads, linking everything up into a phantasmagoria of unity.
“All things with a pulse – animal, vegetable, mineral– are connected – all pulses, vibrations, frequencies are within one organism, not only here, on your planet Earth, but on every planet, star, galaxy, solar system, universe. So be forever mindful,” my Echo vibrated benignly. “Every thought, every deed is connected to the whole, so tread lightly upon the Earth – upon its neighbours too – let harmlessness and surrender be your goal.”
If I hadn’t still been immersed in ‘3D-Cobweb Unity’, I would have dismissed both the message and the messenger. What was happening to me?
What was this spookily calm, yet most seductive inner Echo up to, burdening me thus? Or was I merely going mad?
While the feeling of omnipotence was beginning to fade away along with the love and the 3D-cobweb, I had a mighty attack of the heebie-jeebies.
My stomach, having been empty for three days, was now beginning to play up, rude rumbles erupting, demanding food urgently. My stomach, brain, mind, spirit and soul were universally linked up to the vegetable stew, which I’d had the foresight to place in the bottom oven before leaving for work that morning. I unclasped my fingers, still gripping the railings, and made a dash for my cottage in the hopes that neither the cobweb nor the Echo would follow.
The experience had affected me profoundly, in other words, scared me shitless. St Joan came back to haunt me. I had just played her for the second time at the Music Centre Down Town LA, their main theatre venue. Regrettably I was a hypocrite, because I still didn’t believe in her God, nor those tiresome voices – even St Joan herself back then.
To me, all saints, gurus and mystics were, at best, heavily dubious, at worst, bonkers. So returning home that evening, the sensation of hearing a voice, albeit an Echo was blowing all sense of ‘me’ and my atheist philosophy clean out the window. (If only I’d been asked to play St Joan after my epiphany!)
Once through my front door, I made a beeline for the kitchen, hoping that my vegetable stew would eradicate the whole, chilling interlude. Not on your Nelly!
The Echo was still there, even though the shimmering cobweb and the feeling of omnipotence had evaporated.
“Return to the living room,” it echoed soothingly, “and light the candle as usual.”
How did this ‘Peeping Tom Echo’ know that I always lit a candle? My absolute craving for vegetable stew right then, sparked off an argument between me and the echo.
Needless to say, the Echo won, beguiling me to re-enter the living room, whereupon I found myself lighting the candle.
“Sit over there,” bade the Echo. ‘Over there’ was roughly fourteen feet from the windowsill upon which the candle was lit. I went and sat precisely where I was bid.
“Control the flame, it’s yours to tame, it’s yours to tame,” repeated my Echo hypnotically, over and over. “WILL it to grow taller! WILL it to shrink smaller!”
I felt the entire room shape shifting into a Tardis about to take off. I pulled myself together and began heeding my Echo by meekly controlling the flame.
The chair began to wobble gently, as if helping me to will the flame taller, then to will the flame smaller. On went the flame, obeying my command, with my hands quivering in my lap and a heart on fire.
I didn’t believe what was happening and, ironically, wished I had been on some drug or other – far simpler to explain away. But since it was happening for real, while stone cold sober – whatever ‘real’ may be – I decided to challenge this ‘flame controlling’ nonsense.
“It’s not happening! It’s all hallucination, fantasy, make-believe, imagination, illusion, whatever, but I’m not controlling the flame!” I told the Echo straight.
“You doubting Tom, you”, lulled the Echo. “In your own time, gather up your energy into a fine silky line, link it to the flame and with absolute doubtlessness, WILL the candle out!”
The truth was I had no choice, for the Echo reverberated with such love.
Once I had mustered up all my energy into a fine silky line, I simply waited for that moment of absolute doubtlessness to reveal itself.
I waited and waited, even though I knew it was impossible to will a candle out from such a distance.
“There you go again, you doubting Tom, you!” trilled my Echo. It was disconcerting, this Echo reading my thoughts. Would I ever have privacy again?
Then lo and behold… that Herculean strength returned, as it did previously on the walk home, pumping up through the ground and into my feet, just as before; it’s power shaking the chair, filling me once again with that now familiar omnipotence, until I was convinced that willing the candle out would be a piece of cake.
I gave that absolute doubtlessness one hell of a whirl – out went the candle!!
Easy-peasy – an absolute doddle!
The Echo throbbed away magnificently in my head:
“Death is not the end.
Life is not the beginning.
Birth to death is not a straight line––––––
But a circle of spirits spinning!
“Who are you?” I asked, looking up Heavenwards. Silence. “Are you David Whiting?” Silence. “Are you God?” Silence. “Once again: Who are you?”
No answer.
I became terrified that I was a witch, and began crawling around the floor frantically searching for a draft, hoping beyond hope that a wind from somewhere was the cause of the candle going out. No slightest breeze from anywhere did I find. Then the Echo returned again .
“Your life is your message; sing it, dance it, write it”.
What the hell was all that about, eh? I’d never written hardly a word, I’d hardly ever danced, and possessed no tune, tone, rhythm or pitch, fairly important attributes for a singer, I’d’ve thought.
I began shaking like one obsessed while retching and gagging. Was that fear, or what? No, that couldn’t be so because; ‘no victim I.’ However, pulling myself together, (as we all do when things get rough), didn’t work this time. I just couldn’t stop puking up, but nothing came up. What in God’s name had taken hold of me?
Experiencing an “Awakening”– what ever – is of little interest to anyone except the experiencer. What is of interest however, is how that ‘Awakening’ changes one’s life from then on.
Mine changed all right. I did what my Echo told me.
“Now is the time of transition, when service bids farewell to ambition” whispered my Echo.
I began having a spooky sensation of being vigorously shaken, repeatedly, on and on. Out of that ferocious shaking a memory popped into consciousness.
I was roughly six months old, being violently shaken upside down. Everything around me, Mummy and Daddy were in desperate straights, hysterical they were.
I had swallowed something dangerous. The whole nightmare came rushing back, transforming into bouts of endless puking up, yet absolutely nothing coming up.
I decided to ring my mother in England:
“Ma, did I ever swallow something dangerous when I was a baby?”
I heard her gasp and put her hand clumsily over the mouth piece.
“Good God! John, it’s Pusscat! She remembers swallowing that open safety pin!”
Many more early childhood memories came tumbling in day after day, each one I had my parents validation.
I also recalled being able to see auras around people, seeing the etheric ( a slither of silver) around the trees, I recalled seeing visions. I had the ability as a child of seven, (before boarding school closed me down), to see 3D visions , in colour, in the palm of my left hand.
My family found these visions of mine both ludicrous and tedious, (all being atheists)!
I’m attempting to live my life surrendering to a higher force, but that entails total doubtlessness – total.
Of course I’m only human so that wretched doubt does make an entrance every now and then, but dare I say… less and less? I don’t plan, and I keep an empty diary, so that the higher force can get in, guiding me in the right direction, onto my true path here on earth. I want to be on my true path because only that way can I completely know myself, and therefore give a better quality of service to others.
Surrendering doesn’t offer me success, (well, not in the conventional sense), nor does it offer me riches, but it certainly delivers inward riches galore!
So what more could I want, eh?
In bed with Mother while she was dying, quite out of the blue, she promised to contact me when she died. I was astonished that she would offer such a thing, being an atheist.
Twenty five years went by, but nothing. Then one evening in 2016, here in the kitchen, I dropped one of her favourite antique sherry glasses. Mother was always very fond of sherry.
Gravity! Oh, gravity!
When I’m finally dead–
I’ll be free of thee!
As the sherry glass hit the deck I heard the words “Clumsy Clot!’ (Mother’s unoriginal knick name for me because I’m always dropping or smashing things.)
“Ma?!” I called out, overjoyed. “Is that you…?” Silence. “It is you, isn’t it, ma?” Silence. “Ma, please talk to me. How are you? What’s it like out there?!”
“Not now darling, I’m busy!” I heard her say.
“Impossible!” I laughed. “You can’t still be busy?” (Those words were her mantra while I was growing up).
“I must go now…” in a wafting whisper
“No, don’t go! We have so much to talk about!”
“We will…. We will…” and she was gone.
Well, we have, we certainly have! In a nut shell, what she has managed to drill into my thick scull so far, goes like this:
Our spines are conduits for the light, for we are all ‘beings of Light’.
Each and every one of us live out our life here on planet earth, pulsating at certain frequencies, varying vibrations.
For some reason Mother is continually repeating the necessity for the living to become more aware of vibration, and then begin the process of heightening it.
”How do we heighten our vibration?” I asked.
“With a change of perception; for instance, joyful service, rather than being hell-bent on riches, is one way of heightening one’s vibration.”
“But what’s the point of heightening our vibration anyway?” I ask.
“What ever vibration we have reached on our last breath, is the exact same field of frequency we will be entering on the other side of death .”
“Hmm… sounds sort of logical ….”I surmised, thinking it through .
“Our only aim, once we have arrived here on the other side in our matching field of vibration, is to become sufficiently worthy to climb up to the next field above, and then the next field above that, on and on, higher and higher, as we become more and more sufficiently worthy – “
“OK” I pondered, “but how d’ you become sufficiently worthy?”
“Love, truth, service.”
“OK”, I said , still full of pondering. “But … worthy of becoming what?”
“Of finally reaching the light. Because the next field above is always closer to the light, and that’s what it’s all about: our craving to climb those frequency fields, up and up, higher and higher, becoming more and more worthy, until we finally reach ETERNAL LIGHT, Nirvana, Heaven, Paradise. Bliss, and once there , we never need return, never have to live another life here on earth.
“Doesn’t time fly?” Nowadays, it’s not only us oldies repeating that “Doesn’t time fly?”cliche, but the young too.
That’s because time is flying. The earth’s frequency is lifting.Higher and higher it lifts. We have to heighten our frequency and go with the new speedier vibrational flow.
AI will be far superior in being Master of everything’, but it’ll never be Master of spirit or soul matters, however cunningly they try and persuade us otherwise.
Life…? What is ‘Life’…?
Is it a gift, a blessing, a curse, or a miracle, maybe ?
It could be a mistake, or a punishment perchance?
Or is it nothing more than mere random chance …?
Could it possibly be a far more serious dance …?
Pulsating with the throbbing beat of karma?
The Buddhists call life ‘Dharma’.
Those that glimpse past lives– those that can –
means we are part of an overall ‘master plan’,
thus believing our strings are being pulled
by that omnipotent puppeteer in the sky–
“Having our legs pulled more like!”
All those Humanists & Atheists cry.
But whatever our life’s philosophy—
there are times when death thoughts
get us all into a right royal tizz.
Therefore surely, to live ones life as
courageously, compassionately and
wisely as possible, must be –
the highest form of art there is.
Dying well too is an exit worth rehearsing,
Better start rehearsing quick, ‘cos there
ain’t gonna be no reversing!
Death comes to us all, ‘tis inevitable fact–
check it out with spirit’s enemy – science.
But do we die with our nature still intact?
The answer may lay with her majesty –
‘Overwhelming Silence’.
I kneel to you silence, so soft on your throne.
You my shelter, shield, Shangri-La, chaperone.
“Silence, when thoughts wither all over grown,
please scatter the kindly ones again to be sewn.
Shoot them through that vast blue of unknown.
Across the Earth where the eagles have flown!”
MAY THE POWER OF SILENCE
DEVOUR OUR VIOLENCE.
END
PS. I want to thank Peter Hall for firing me, (See ‘CAREER’) for Cymbeline didn’t do well. But I’m thanking Peter Hall for so, so much more than that.
Remember I told you that I saw visions in the palm of my left hand when I was seven?
One of those childhood visions has remained with me throughout my life, and Daddy was present to witness its beginnings.
Aged seven, I cantered up on my pony and shoved my left palm’s 3D coloured vision almost into Daddy face, so excited was I.
“Look, Daddy, look!” I cried.
“What is it this time, Pusscat?” he asked, trying not to seem too impatient.
“It’s HOME! Daddy! Look! Ancient house, church, river ,near some woodland.”
“But we have no church or river here, Pusscat –?”
”No! No! Real home, stupid!” I retorted, kicking my pony on.
After Peter Hall fired me, Robert suggested we went searching for that same vision.
We searched and searched, and then decided we were better off staying where we were in London.
So, we relaxed back into our Hammersmith routine.
A couple of weeks later, 1986 (still practising ‘Surrender’ ) the vision appeared in a magazine: Ancient house , church, river near some woodland, and this is where I’m writing from today. I would never have found it if I’d stayed at the National. So thanks to Peter Hall’s abnormal cruelty–
I’m living in my vision, and have been doing so for thirty eight years!
