Aklo Letters

'... I am going to write here many of the old secrets and some new ones;
but there are some I shall not put down at all. I must not write down
the real names of the days and months which I found out a year ago, nor
the way to make the Aklo letters, or the Chian language, or the great
beautiful Circles, nor the Mao games, nor the chief songs. I may write
something about all these things but not the way to do them, for peculiar
reasons.'

Arthur Machen, The White People

Sitting on the sofa at my friend's house on Southover Street, enjoying the luxury of a free morning. All is quiet - I suspect the others have all gone to their various workplaces (two, Jude and Vicky, are carers, the third, Nick, works at the Uni in IT services). Occasional traffic noise from the street outside, a passing chatter of voices. Silence. This is England.

Awoke early before my alarm. After lying in bed a few moments I remembered that the Zen group were having their early morning sit around 8ish - if I went NOW I could make it. I continued to stare at the ceiling for a few moments anyway; my mind still partly in another dimension. Then, something clicked on - up, on with clothes, down stairs, face wash, banana, bike, bag with cushion, cycle cycle cycle... I arrive at ship street gardens, the wee alleyway where lies the Meditation centre, to find the door locked, and me a half-hour late.

Such is life sometimes. Came back and spent the rest of the morning reading 'the White People' by Arthur Machen. I came across Arthur Machen referenced in a collection of stories by HP Lovecraft, the American Horror writer. Machen is one of his primary influences, and is similarly interested in hidden spheres and realms beyond the everyday that sometimes impinge on our consciousness; the uncanny, the darkly suggestive, the subtly, insidiously creepy. 'The White People' is about the diary of a little girl living in the Welsh hills who is taught mysterious secrets by her nurse, which may or may not be connected to Witchcraft. (OK, they are connected to Witchcraft).

The best thing is the way which she relates in unselfconscious, childish language things which she is only partly permitted to describe. The way she suggests things without going in to detail really sparks the readers imagination, as in the above quotation. I love this kind of playing-with-the-reader deliberate coyness. If I ever write a novel, thats how it'll be. Mischievous.

Anyway, so I'm having a wee breaky. Spoke to my supervisor yesterday who basically encouraged me to do the same. So I'm gonna hang out, read, talk to my friends and enjoy Brighton a bit while I have the chance.