Conversations with Nic - hungry ghosts

I'm posting all of Conversations with Nic, a journey toward hope - up on this here blog, starting with today's first section.  The entire book, Kindle copy only at this time,can be had for a fee at

http://amzn.to/14jUNUs  .   Please enjoy the reads here and take your mind off of the world.  This book is a journey on any topic or energy wave you wish it to be. But it was intended to document, in a mythical poetic kind of way how one quit something through conversing with Nic, the character that remains when the nicotine leaves your body. We know everyone's got ghosts so it's not for nothing that this journey or any journey can be a generic undertaking with your specifics added to launch your world anew. I say, keep on keeping on and follow your heart song. It's your beat and your dance. Stir the pot and watch the soup swirl with passion and color, deep joy and new relationships.

CONVERSATIONS WITH NIC

and a few others

a journey toward hope

by

Freda Karpf

Acknowledgments

First let me say that Nic wouldn’t be possible with out Homer’s help and guidance.  I thank you lots Mr. Homer.  Nic was a long time in coming.   All along the way I had the help, support and guidance from some very special friends that have known, entertained and kept away the hungry ghosts.  Where would I be without you?  I also want to send love and a deep bow and more love to my mother, sister, and brother Jerry.  What I learn as I grow through time was something that was always there. There is always connection.  There is always love. Wherever it comes from it is real and it is always. My mom was one of the most special people to walk the planet. My sister was my best friend and Jerry, the consummate traveler, was my contemporary, brother and one of my teachers that taught me compassion. All of them had the best sense of humor and are rotten to the core for leaving me.  And yet I love them and miss them dearly.

This book is dedicated to Leaping Lena.

Hungry Ghosts-1 The joint is jumping Starts & stops The start of many conversations Quota un-quota ---------------------------- Synch or Swim-16 The whole ball of yarn A rock and hard book ---------------------------- Origins and Endings-28 ---------------------------- Weave-34 Evelyn Eaton Quote Unraveling Time eats away the dream O man wherefore art thou? Ten years before the loom Water/Memory Waiting, weaving Threads Dodges Weave, weave ---------------------------- Buddha Smokes-72 ---------------------------- Still-77 Red Wheelbarrows Compass points The digs The steam of Cuchulainn Process, it’s all in the wrist A fine mess Quitting Junger than springtime ---------------------------- Instant Archeology-116 ----------------------------

Time Fragments-122 Bird in Space “I alone remain...” Alchemical wedding Grok Johnson Ave. The Ark Tender Sorrow An iconography of the clock Felled by time Chasing the ephemeral Zen calendar Heavy cream Long time no see Purgatory is on hold Neural net, Spider woman Make me a milkshake ---------------------------- Open Seas-167 ---------------------------- U R Here-175 A bird in the bush “But you must have a mind that cannot  be deceived.” Coursing Fool me once, fool me twice Place is the third character in a novel Descent The GD Lady’s Monologue This must be the place ---------------------------- Patterns and Prayers-223 The mountain inside out Climbing with my head After Circe How long has it been? Natal catalyst

 

Chapter 1

Hungry Ghosts

           

            In dealing with Nic it seems like you must convert your humanity into a piece of taffy and stretch the “I” to its limits.  Whatever is absurd or tidal will pull on you when you’re trying to pull away from him.  Nic sounds like an evil SOB.  Sometimes that’s my intent.  But there are times that I’m fond of the bastard.

            When a vague feeling pushes me to reach for something, but I’m not sure what, it usually takes me a while till I realize that this is Nic.  Unable to use words, he pushes me to find what he wants.  I should say he pushes through me.  The hungry ghost wants to be fed.  This is how I came to know that quitting smoking wasn't as simple as losing a habit.  Nic is still haunting me.  He hangs around. 

            I didn't think I would know myself without him.  And I was right.  The “stars” showed up the first few weeks.  They were all hyper crazy and hungry for mischief.  Nic was among them, hanging back in the crowd.  He’s insidious not loud.  He was part of the constellation fractured by the cold squares of winter and withdrawal. (Tweeted a version of this line May 22, 2013) They were all party people that came out during the initial cravings.  Making concentration and some sensible inhibitions impossible for the while.   It’s actually not a bad time.  But Nic, and you know there's always got to be one in every crowd, was into mind games.

The fact that you might want to be organized and systematized, slick with your own Webster, means nothing during this time of withdrawal.  Nic takes care of that.  Grammar and elements of style are out the window.  Hence the transformation and transmigration of a demon coursing through the veins of a planetary-bound soul who was once, when connected with a particular part of your cerebral cortex, known as yourself.   Nic isn’t just a bad habit.  He’s an identity crisis.

            Your self, your cravings, your personal pantheon, who you are and what you eat and everything that makes you tick are revolving at such a fast rate that evolving as a verb is just too damn slow to explain what the hell is really going on.  Imagine a planet so small that it could fit in the palm of your hand.  People this planet, place animals and farms on it.   Even duplicate Kansas and the Great Wall of China.  Go ahead.  Put a little spin on it and rotate it around an axis.  Theoretically, this planet can be going so fast that the people and everything you’ve got on it are a blur, more like a belt loop than coherent and functional individuals.  This is a picture of what it's like to be who you are during this time of withdrawal.  You are, if only reluctantly, a revolutionary being.  And everything and everyone else that you must deal with, including the people you must know in order to know yourself move too slow.  Everything  happens faster than hard candies can roll up your arm into your arteries.  The transformation you’re adjusting to is the shift from nicotine to Nic, the elemental being.         

            This became clear to me while I was preparing rolled cabbage.  Nic stayed in my system when I quit smoking.  My mother had passed away a few years ago and I was really missing her that day.  Cooking one of her special dishes was a way to ease that loneliness.   Some foods can bring you through the haunting days.  I missed smoking too.  My kitchen felt crowded and I was the only one there.  I knew that Nic was pushing his agenda, trying to satisfy his craving through me.  And there I was satisfying mine through my mother’s cooking.  For some reason this brought to mind the Tibetan Tinga bells I once bought as a gift for Lynn.  Their ring was meant to ward off the hungry ghosts, so, I supposed, you could live your life in peace.  Then it came to me, Nic is a hungry ghost too.

            At times it seems as if Nic is here creating my reality.  That is, when I’m still in close orbit to him.  The degree or degrees that Nic influences a person is supposed to decrease as you move away from him.  It’s as if he had a field of gravity capable of pulling you in.  Time is also a factor in his pull on you.  Also, you might call him a psychic Lon Chaney because he has many disguises.  It’s wise to consider many alternate routes to move away from him because you’ll never know where he’s lurking.  So, don’t rely on time alone.  The best bet is to move away from Nic on many levels and through different frontiers.  That’s what I did.

            I’d like to share some of the elements of my journey with you.  I can’t vouch for the length of time I needed or took to move away from him.  Although traditionally a journey means a day’s work or a day’s travel.  I certainly did work, and I certainly did travel.  But I can’t be counted upon to give a reliable telling of the days or the efforts.  In my former life I thought of journeys in a romantic fashion, never realizing that they had so much to do with turns and transformations.  I thought they were more about visiting exotic places and feeling the texture and tempo of other worlds, sampling them as you might pick a piece of fruit from a bowl. Now it seems more appropriate to say that a journey is something from within that I could no longer contain.  Something that required and insisted upon meeting up with the world.  Whether it created circumstances in which it could work its way into the world or whether it instigated a move away from my local surroundings, it seemed like journey was a cycle that spun through my life and included the world around me before it could have its full go round and settle back in my bones.

            As you spiral away from Nic’s reach, remember that it’s not simply the gravitational pull that you are escaping just as it’s not simply your blood supply that you’re saving from the vampire, but your immortal soul.

            Who are you without Nic as your companion?  There are so many possibilities.  You need to keep a running list and post it at all the crossroads and watering holes you’ll come across along the way. 

            But a word of warning.  Every habit that was insidious in your life could have been the director of your life.  Without that habit you’re left wondering what the hell you should be doing with yourself.  Hang onto the means at hand for getting you through, like the mortgage, the job, the hobbies, hopes and dreams, four legged friends and friendly neighbors.  They’ll come through along with the debris you think is all that’s left of you if you give them a chance.  And don’t change all your habits or start thinking that everything in your life is a habit to be changed.   Some things should be classified as rituals.  And some relationships as sacred.