The Silence Key

I describe elsewhere how I have re-discovered the benefits of breath-holding and silent breathing. Now, I dreamt that, when my wife and I arrived home from town, our keys would not open the door. Indeed, there was not even a keyhole.

I rang the door-bell, and then looked around for pebbles, in case Diarmuid was wearing his ear-phones and would not hear the bell.

But Diarmuid heard the bell all right and came and opened the door.

"What's going on?" I asked.

"O, there was something wrong with the door," said Diarmuid, "so I called Magog, and he put in a new door lock. Look, here's the master key," and he opened a little key safe that had been attached to the inside wall, wherein sat the "master key."

The Master Key was like a small paper-clip enclosed in see-through, solid plastic.

"Gosh," I thought, "So small, it would be lost in your pocket (or hand-bag)." But, then I saw it had a hole to which a key-ring could be fixed, so that was all right.

"Where's the key=hole?" I asked, for I could not see one.

"O no," said Diarmuid. "There's no key-hole. The Master Key is used to register the users. Once a user is registered, the lock automatically recognises him or her and automatically opens the door."

"So, how is a user registered?"

"Show the Master Key to the lock. When it clicks, state the user's Code Name, look into the lock and breathe normally for a minute."

"Normally?"

"Yes, no panting, snorting or snuffling."

"But, what is normal?"

"Remember," said Diarmuid, "Silent Breathing is the Key."

"And Code Name?"

"Well," said Diarmuid, "we could use Frank, Tess, Dermo, Tom, Neef, Shinner, Ron ..."

"Okay, give me the Master Key and I will try to register myself."

I showed the Master Key to the lock. Ir went click. I stood close to the lock and said "Krunchy." Then I  looked steadily at the lock, breathing silently for a minute, and was duly registered.

"Supposing there is an emergency, and people, who are not registered, want to get out?

"In that case," said Diarmuid, "There is an emergency Code Word anybody can use to open the door. I have registered 'Emerge' as the emergency Code Word."

We went in, and I found a letter addressed to me inside. 

"O No!" I exclaimed, "another medical appointment." This time it was an appointment at a clinic for a Metabolic Test, whatever that means.

I went to the clinic, and found I was to sit at a card table on an upright chair and answer a book of questions. There were about three hundred A4 sized pages in the book. This will take three hours, I thought. But soon I found that every question in the book had the same answer. Silent Breathing was the key, and I flew through the test, giving a silent breath as the answer to every question.

Land Office Reform

 Now that my prostate is somewhat enlarged, I often wake at night to go to the toilet. My dream-world provides me with a wake-up theme, often enwrapped in an elaborate adventure.

Last night, I dreamt I was back in the Land Registry, where I had worked for over 35 years. I could not go to my old room, but followed the flow of people to a large hall. On the way, I passed the gents' toilets, but they were closed. The Ladies' toilets were opened, but I passed on to the hall.

The hall was laid out as an extensive open-plan area. There was a large number of small tables, similar to card tables, each accompanied by a straight-backed chair. I found the table allocated to me. 

After my name, the tag said "Leader." I knew instantly what this meant. It meant that in future, people would not be sending cases to me, as trained lawyer, for decision, but would look to me for guidance in deciding cases themselves. Decision by esoteric knowledge-heads would be replaced by decisions by ordinary staff following clear instructions. (Instead of deciding cases, experts would in future decide case-types). I sat on my chair and waited.

Imagine if this principle were applied to the Justice System! A person found stealing or in possession of drugs would be dealt with on the spot. A policeman would simply take him/her in charge and deliver him/her to a reform centre for treatment, the police working under guidance of experts. How much more efficient this would be than the courts' system!

I recall a case where two youths attempted to rob a local shop. The shop-lady grappled with them and held onto one until the police arrived. The police collected the second youth, took them to the station, charged them, and released them for later prosecution. Next day they were back mocking the shop-lady, saying "It will be your word against ours," and so it was. In court, the shop-lady was asked to point out the perpetrators (although she had physically delivered them to the police) and the defence made sure to have some look-alikes in court. Entirely a farcical system!

My father had been a policeman, and retired in the very year I began to study law. I asked him what were the offences for which he made most arrests. He said "Drunk and Disorderly," and "Behaviour likely to lead to a Breach of the Peace." In these cases, perpetrators were usually held overnight in the station and then released without charge. Peace was upheld. But now policemen stand idly by while the peace is disturbed and later refer perpetrators to an inefficient courts system.

Back to my dream.

A man approached the podium. To my surprise, it was my brother, Jerry, an outsider to the Land Registry. He said:

"My name is Jerry Killeen. The management team have requested me to take charge of the restructuring process."

This had great significance to me. Jerry is an accountant who had previously been involved in the restructuring of several companies, including

• United Biscuits, which had amalgamated several independent biscuit companies. A tin of biscuits could not be costed, because of the "Broken Biscuit" privilege, i.e., the right of workers at all levels, both in the manufacturing and in the distribution, to take tins of supposedly broken biscuits. Jerry was part of a team that, with cooperation of the trade unions, replaced the privileges by an increase in salary, and thereby made the biscuit business more efficient.
• Dublin Port and Docks Board, where he was part of a team that replaced the right of individual dockers to take ownership of the loading and unloading of ships by a rational system.

Jerry went on :

"You will have noticed that everything has changed. However, nothing has changed."

In the case of United Biscuits, although restructured, it remained a biscuit company. In the case of the Port and Docks Board, it remained a loader and unloader of ships. In the case of the Land Registry, it would remain a registry of titles, only restructured on the inside.

I did not stay to hear the  rest of  Jerry's speech. At this point, I noticed that the Gents' toilets had been re-opened, so I rose and headed for the toilet. This was the signal to my body to wake up. I woke up and actually headed for the toilet.

A Mountain Air

 One of the places in my dream world is a hut at the foot of a wild, misty mountain, where I spend the life of a hermit, with just one set of (old) clothes, a fireplace, a timber bench for a bed and sacks for bed covers, and I live on fish from the mountain lake, roots, bilberries, and leaves.

Recently I dreamt that I heard a lonely flute tune floating down off the mountain. I listened for a while, then I took out my tin whistle and played along, developing the tune. 

Waking, I remembered the dream, but had to re-imagine the dream tune;

A Mountain Air

Like-well's Tome

 I dreamt I was in some Alpine place, high up on a slope. Across the valley were massive mountains, dotted with many an interesting site: cliffs, forests, villages, churches and so on, and below in the valley many other equally lovely and interesting things, as well as a lake with cruisers and rowing boats, but all at too great a distance to be other than a blob on a picture of the mountains.

I had my camera with me, which had a very limited zoom. I also had a massive hard-covered book, called Lecheuelle's Phototectomy, if I recollect correctly, which contained massive technical instructions on how to make the most of  photography in that place, which was totally useless to me.

One of our party was a woman named Anne. She kept on saying to me, "Let me have a look .... Can I have it again for a moment ... You should take the village over there .... You should take the little church .... You should take the village dancers ..."

I got completely annoyed with her (piling up tasks for me, all quite impossible to carry out);. I got angry, and I said,

"If you want to capture something, just point and click. Don't tell me about it, just do it."

Now, in my waking state, I realise that my subconscious mind was up to its old verbal, punning, tricks. "Lecheuelle's," posing as a French/ Germanic name, is merely a misspelling of "Like-well's," and "Phototectomy", no doubt is just "A tome about the techniques of photography." 

"Like-well's Tome," about the technical details of photography, represents my accumulation of technical knowledge that has become quite useless to me in this "Point and Click" world. 

Free Energy

 I dreamt that Philomena next door was in our house chatting with my wife (as neighbours often do).

When Phil mentioned that her mobile phone had become very hot in her pocket, I decided to insert my male, scientific, view-point into the conversation.

"Well," I said, "your phone works, of course, off microwaves. Microwaves are a form of energy, and often convert into heat. They can also be converted, do you know, into electricity.

"Over a hundred years ago, in fact, Nikola Tesla erected a very tall aerial in America to transmit electricity by microwaves across the Atlantic."

"But it didn't work, did it?" said Phil.

"O yes, it did," said I. "It worked until his bank pulled the plug on the finance. When the banker heard Nikola say he would deliver free electricity to Africa, the bank withdrew the money and the project stopped. The banker wanted to make millions, not give stuff away for free. 

"In fact, they are now doing that very thing in Africa. In Nairobi, where my sister works, the slum-dwellers all have smart-phones, but they don't have electricity; so the phone companies provide them with chargers that charge their phones from the microwaves transmitted through the air.

"So, you could set up a receiver in your garden to receive microwaves and convert them into electricity."

"So, I would have to set up a big tall Antenna in my garden," said Phil.

"O No," I said. "The transmitter must be a shaft, a tall aerial, but the receptor should be a bowl-shaped receiver."

"Well," said Phil, "I have a very large Pyrex bowl that I never use, because it is far too big for anything. We could use that."

"I was really thinking of something larger still, but we could use your Pyrex bowl as a proto-type."

So, next thing, Philomena and I were constructing a microwave receiver from her Pyrex bowl. I bored a hold in the bottom of the bowl, because it would be outside and we did not want it to fill with water. Next, I pasted the outside with glue and wound yards and yards of copper wire round and round the bowl, making it into a great bowl-shaped coil.  

I tested it with a sensitive voltmeter, and found that there was, indeed, a difference in potential between the start and end points of the coil. Then we attached the extremities to a direct-current battery-charger and commenced to charge batteries using our device. (All battery-chargers are direct current, but the commercial ones incorporate a device to convert DC to AC). 

All this happened in the dream, of course, not in reality.

Computer island

 I dreamt I went to stay on an island off the west coast of Ireland where, in the dream, my sister had gone to do a computer course. This was an unusual computer course set up by an American, from Silicon Valley, California, who had gone to live on the island, where he "worked from home" providing software to client companies in America. His specialty was motion, and his course was based on the innovations he had developed.

I, on the other hand, was only concerned in capturing the essence of the island in a painting. 

My sister persuaded me, nevertheless, to attend at one of the computer classes. To my surprise, I was subjected to a long and penetrating interview by the American, where I exercised considerable restraint in not answering, "mind your own business."

Following the interview, the American said to the gathering, inter alia, 

"Krunchie will be assigned to programming the movement of the currach in the sea environment," which sounded to me more like a life-time commitment than a casual few days course. I did not, in other words feel committed to the task. (A "Currach" is a small sea-worthy boat used by fishermen on the west coast of Ireland).

Next, the American had me watch several videos describing the mathematics of movement, in particular, the mathematics of helicopter and drone movements. I was dismayed and perplexed at the task, but he said, 

"You don't have to master this maths. That has already been done by others who spent lifetimes on it. What we have to do is lift the appropriate bits into our programs."

So next, I had to view videos of currachs traversing the choppy waters off the west of Ireland, and spend a day physically learning how to manipulate a currach. 

Then I was left to the task of describing the movements of the currach in the American's software. Well, I can tell you I was not going to put my heart and soul into it, but lifted the existing movement software from other places, dumped the results on my master and "left the building."

Word came to me that the American was surprised with the speed of my response and delighted with the quality of my work.

I concentrated on my painting project, making many sketches of the island, the island people,  the "intruders." Myself in pensive mood, currachs in the water, and so on.

My sister viewed my work, but said,

"Your motive is not really to describe the island, or the people, but to express the loneliness, the isolation, in fact the contented loneliness in your heart."

Suddenly I understood the picture I needed to paint. I set up a very large canvas, five foot by four foot, and, with broad strokes, quickly painted a scene: a light, creamy-grey sky with broad streaks of light blue, a grey-green island with blotches of creamy-grey rocks and brighter green grassy patches, and, at the bottom, a grey-green sea with strips of white foam. The reason for the large canvas was that the human figure in the middle of the scene could be presented fully and not just as a blob. It is mainly the figure that suggested the "contented loneliness." While no attempt was made to make it a sel-portrait, the commentators quickly identified me in the figure.

Dublin in the Rare Old Times

What a sensational archive of images the mind holds.

Last night in my dreaming and reverie, I reviewed hundreds of images of suburban Dublin, gardens and hedges and buildings and footpaths, doors and windows, crowds moving this way and that way, and people in swimming pools, pale white-skinned people and darker skinned ones too. Then I saw modern black-glass buildings and newly paved streets, active shop-fronts and closed down premises, buses and pedestrianized places. Images on images and images.

What brought on this great exhibition of images in my head\?  Undoubtedly my activities of yesterday.

First, of course, I had my breakfast. Then I took a bus into town and made my way to Markiewicz sports and fitness centre, where I had a swim and sauna. Markiewicz is in a newly re-built section of Dublin with mighty black-glass buildings, adjoining the Tara Street railway station, but  nearby are many old buildings and some dereliction. Then I  took myself up to  Yamamori Sushi, near the Halfpenny Bridge for lunch, where I was delighted to find that black rice was back, having been missing for weeks (probably due to trade hold-ups arising from the current conflicts in the outside world). The nearby streets are pedestrianized and re-paved beautifully, and there is a pleasant new hotel (Motel One)  just beside Arnott's.

I bussed home, to review my James Joyce file, for tomorrow, in Clareville Centre, we celebrate Bloomsday and I will wear a white jacket and straw hat and pretend to be himself.

Then I went off in my car to do the weekly shopping. I had left it a bit late in the afternoon, and the traffic was very slow-moving. New urban centres have been built up beyond Finglas, but the roads have not been expanded. The government wants to get people out of cars and into buses, but it can't work because buses don't take you where you want to go, but only on scheduled routes. What the city needs is Krunchie's Cab, but nobody has read my book yet.

Back from shopping, I went to my office and reviewed my recording of Lissmulgee. I had tried this to many different accompaniments. Last night I put it to a Yamaha style called "Hawaiian," and this seemed to be the best yet. So I opened up my recording software and added my voice. Was it perfect? No! But perfection is the enemy of progress, so I decided to run with it. First I needed a picture for the record cover. Now, I had taken a whole series of photos in Lismulgee years  ago, but they have been lost on a back-up device that broke down. I have been using Photoshop for years, in a version that is no longer supported and just now has been rejected by my version of Windows, so I have installed an imitation called "GIMP" which I am trying to learn to use. Well I put up a recent bland picture of Lissmulgee and doctored it as best I could, then uploaded it to Amazing Radio. (I will post it to Distrokid, YouTube Music and all the rest later).

Having done that I had my tea (egg and salad) and watched the News and Heartbeat.

All this would have been ringing round in my head as I hit the pillow, but mostly the character I met in the Sauna early in the day, - a young reformed drug-addict. I first encountered him in the sauna last Friday, when he appeared with two companions, whom I first took to be like himself, but it transpired that one was a social worker or supervisor and the other was a good friend who had been a school-mate and was there to support him. The character had been to jail, and, that having been a rather unpleasant experience was determined to stay out of trouble. His wife had got a barring order against him, so he was not allowed to see his two or three children. He says it is hi wife who is using drugs, not he, but a social worker told him to prove this. He said to her: "Isn't that your job. You are supposed to observe things." However, he took a video on his phone of his wife buying drugs and sent it to the social worker. He was obliged to support his wife, but could not afford rent at the same time, so his landlord became nasty and evicted him. However, he came under the Homeless Services, and they got him a new place and pay for his rent. When he is employed, they reduce the rent subsidy.

Now, it appears that Sauna is part of his rehabilitation programme. The social worker supervisor was apparently there to ensure that he took his sauna. All three were watching the clock. After a while, the social worker said he had to go now, as he had other duties to attend, and reminded your man to do five more minutes, which he did. When the social worker was gone, conversation between the two friends confirmed his function. They had both known this social worker when they were at school: he lived on another street, and they had only met him again on this day.

So, on Wednesday I saw your man again in the Sauna. He was by himself, and it seemed that his rehabilitation was progressing.

When I went to bed all these adventures were a jumble and I saw the old Dublin changing in multiple images old and new.

The White Strand song

 When I woke up this morning, the White Strand song ("Amhrán na Trá Báine") was in my mind, for no reason at all. This was not a dream, but a memory. I was 16 when I heard of this song first, on summer camp in the Gaeltacht. Brother Flately, whom we called Pancho, was a pioneer in using a tape recorder for Irish lessons. He played back to us students a recording he had made of a debate by local men. One of the speakers used the phrase "Is cuma leis an gCeallach," (meaning "It doesn't matter at all"). I thought the actual words used were "Is cuma leis an ngeallach," literally meaning "The moon doesn't mind," but Pancho explained that the literal meaning, taken from a song well-known in Conamara, was "Kelly doesn't Care.)" (Kelly doesn't care, because he is the man who took over the farm following the tragic drowning of the author's three brothers at sea while fishing in a currach).

Now, it turns out that this song is one of the Great Songs (Amhrán Mór) of Conamara. An "Amhrán Mór" does not tell of a love affair. or trajedy, or comic event, or politics, but, like a novel, tells the whole story of an era.

The song opens with the words "Mo mhíle slán le hÉirinn bhocht, is nach breá an rud an tEarrach féin," ("My thousand farewells to poor Ireland, and isn't Spring itself wonderful").

I never got the full import of these words until forty years later. An elderly cousin in America wrote to my wife how he would love to see a traditional bonfire on his forthcoming visit. Now, he was coming in August, not June, which is bonfire month, but we organised a community bonfire that August to please him (and ourselves, of course). Talking to me at the bonfire, he said, that, if he ever visited Ireland again, it would be in the spring. Why so? "I recall in my youthful memories that, in spring, all the hedgerows would burst into white blossoms and the fields yellow with buttercups. This is the Ireland I still dream of."

And this is the wonder of spring that Brigid O'Malley sings about and that every emigrant from rural Ireland would "get."

The tune is recognised in Conamara as the air of Bridid O'Malley's song, but it is older than that. A young emigrant from my father's place, on his way to Australia, in 1904, wrote, "The Lusmagh Fields so Green." Sending it home in a letter, a traditional musician put it to this same tune, proving that the tune was there before Bridid's words.

"Lusmagh Fields so Green" is sung by Johnny McEvoy, and I have an English version of the other " Farewell to Poor Ireland," both available, inter alia, on YouTube.

Brigid O'Malley emigrated to Boston after her three brothers were drowned. She was there for the Great Depression and times were hard. She eventually returned to Conamara where she was famous for singing her song. She also sang it to acclaim in Boston, but completed the story with verses added after coming home.

My Inner Architect

Summary

 I  dreamt I was on an outing and adventure with my two brothers. After many adventures, we had quite an exciting journey home through several amazing forms of transport. The last  part of the journey, however, was to walk up the lane bringing us home. When I arrived home, I saw that the locality had been transformed by visionary architecture.

Background

Now let me explain the geography of home. In the later 19th century, as Dublin expanded, a railway line was constructed from Broom Bridge to Broadstone. Part of the construction involved blasting through rock. The debris from this rock was thrown into a heap beside the railway, and this heap was kept from slipping into the adjoining Tramline Cottages (built to accommodate workers on the tramline), and building ground on the other side. In the 1930s ten houses were built on this well-settled hill of debris. Our house was one of these.

My final treck

I was weary and tired, but my brothers were still fairly energetic. I let them go ahead, and it was quite a few minutes before I dragged myself to our destination. As you approach the end, you get a glimpse of our back-yard from the lane. Wow! some architect and developer had transformed our back-yard into a wonderful garden. There were two small teams of big children playing a ball-game, using bats and a shuttlecock, in the grass area, and many of our adult relations sitting around in deck-chairs.

My brothers and I had often used shuttlecocks in our back yard. This was because you could give a shuttlecock a fair whack without canting it, for the "feathers" would slow it down in the air.

My welcome

I reached the back garden, backpack hunching me forward, and expected the relations to jump with joy on meeting me, but no, they sat there indifferent  to my arrival, just acquitting me a nod. This is the same as the welcome I got as a toddler from Mrs. McCormack, when I first ventured out our garden gate, having mastered the art of walking, and thinking myself a great fellow, when she exclaimed, "Oh hello Roger, and hello Jerry, and is this poor little Francie," the latter being me. No  welcome for me, just a  reference to me being poorly and little. That had put me in my place once and for all.

The Architecture

I went to my room. It had been transformed by the new architecture! I looked out the window and saw, in a wide panorama, that the whole locality had been gloriously transformed.

My Railway memories

Now, near our home, as I have just explained, was a railway. This had been disused as a passenger line for many years, as visitors from the country were then dumped at Kingsbridge (now Heuston) Station. There was, however, a tall wire fence all along the line to prevent people from trespassing, which resulted in a large stretch of land, which could have been utilised as amenity, being kept as a wilderness.

Not that the wire fence stopped us kids from trespassing. We had a rule: "He who cants must retrieve." This rule gave me a moral dilemma. My sister, who is a nun, has recently explained that, pursuant to the theology of Thomas Aquinas, when faced with a choice of two evils, the lesser evil is the moral choice. This would have eased my conscience, for I and my siblings were under parental commandment never to go on the railway line (or other person's garden).

So, on the street, I was faced with two conflicting rules: the rule to retrieve the ball I canted on the railway line, and the parental command. Disobeying the latter was, of course, the lesser evil, and therefore the moral choice, but I did not realise that at the time, and, so, was riddled with guilt.

The Inner Architect

Let me explain now what the inner architect had done: the whole area of the railway line, its adjoining houses and gardens, and our own ten-house "keyhole" enclave, had been absorbed into a magnificent development with beautiful apartments and amenity areas. My cousin, a visionary architect, was in my presence, and I expressed my delight with the architecture. "Yes," he said wistfully, "This is how it could be,"

The Message

Being a complex dream, it seems to have a complex message, which I understand to have 3 parts:

1. To have adventure, you have to travel a long way from home (to mountain, seaside or country) because the amenities of your locality (e.g., railway and canal lands and school grounds) are  out of bounds.
2. If you engage a super modern form of transport, it will not bring you home, but dump you at a big hub, from where you have to engage other forms of transport, which, bringing you ultimately to your locality, still don't bring you home, and, tired and weary, you still have to  trudge the last bit, weighed down under the weight of your back-pack. All this could be improved by implementing Krunchie's Cab, which would bring you all the way home in one comfortable carriage from wherever you were.
3. Visionary architecture could develop attractive localities with attractive buildings and community amenities. (Instead we have seen massive, characterless, housing estates, and mish-mash of different, often ugly, commercial buildings). Great cities were developed on a singular plan, including Georgian Dublin, but, since independence, ours has been largely a mishmash of mediocrity.

Attractive new apartments which blend well with adjoining sylvan suburb of Glasnevin.

Just across the road, new slum-style apartments. How could planning officers allow such: why is compliance with the local styles not enforced?