Inquisitor Notes:
B. is an attractive forty three year old female with a hint of oriental about her eyes. She wears no makeup, apart from blue eyeliner. Her parents are from Macau, her father being Portuguese and her mother Chinese. She has thick, long hair with blonde streaks and moves in a way that would be attractive to most men. She left a career in the media to pursue a spiritual path as a shaman and psychic, after going through what she calls her awakening.
Duration of relationship with [THE SUBJECT]: Oct 2020 – April 2021 (six months)
First Interview:
“So you first meet him at a New Year’s community event?”
“Yes. More than a hundred of us are camping at a private property for the five nights leading up to New Year’s. It’s an alcohol-free, drug-free event for spiritual people. There’s a bonfire on the last night, with drumming and dancing around the fire.”
“We bump into each other once or twice. All the ice in my esky melts and he offers me the use of the solar-powered fridge in his camper. I don’t see him much, though. There are workshops every day and friends to catch up with. People are in the creek a lot of the time because it’s so hot. I don’t think about him much. Not until I see him dance that New Year’s Eve night.”
“It’s then that I realise he is not like anyone else there. He has his eyes closed while he dances. He doesn’t care what people think. There are very few people that free. He doesn’t try to hit on anyone. He strips off and dances naked. He’s in his own world. It’s not that he’s drunk or stoned. He’s drunk on the joy of living.”
“I offer him a card reading on the last day of the event. He knows I am a psychic by then. I sense his attraction to me. We sit on camping chairs around a little table under the gazebo. The cards show he is someone that loves freely. I ask him about this. He says he is in a relationship with a polyamorist artist in Newcastle who he sees most weekends and that he also has a lover living in Melbourne that he sees every few months. He says the two women know about each other.”
“How does that make you feel?”
“Disappointed. I know he’s not for me. I want a man for myself, not to share.”
“So it ends on a note of disappointment?”
“Yes. Except that he offers me a joy-flight in his plane in return for the card reading I had gifted him.”
Second Interview:
“You said yesterday that the camping event ended with him offering you a joy-flight in his plane.”
“Yes.”
“But you didn’t want to see him because of the other two women in his life?”
“Yes. But a few weeks later we do arrange for a Saturday joy-flight, on a weekend when my son is with his Dad.”
“You haven’t mentioned your son before.”
“He’s six. Our marriage didn’t end well. My ex cheated on me and then tried to take him away from me. We went through the courts and share custody now.”
“How is the joy-flight?”
“The weather turns out to be too bad for flying. We go for a walk and sightseeing drive instead. I’m too tired to drive back to Sydney. He offers me dinner and use of the guestroom for the night. We end up sleeping together in his room.”
“How do you feel the next day?”
“Disappointed in myself. But I feel safe with him during that weekend, despite the other two women in his life. He is an intelligent and very secure man, a good lover, sensitive and strong at the same time. I leave his place fulfilled and happy.”
“When do you see him again?”
“About a month later. He happens to be in town on my day off, and he comes to my apartment. The weather is terrible but we are both feeling the energy and go down to the beach and dive into the ocean in the wind and the rain. We go back to my apartment. We have a hot shower and make love. Then he leaves.”
“We message each other but we don’t see each other again for some months. I send him a photo of me submerged naked in the ocean. He writes a poem about it.”
Inquisitor Notes: A transcript of the poem follows.
my sun-dappled mermaide lies on her
side submerged under the surface
her honeyed limbs languidly
kick-framing her bounty
her eyes are beckoning me
she entices with bubbles
she is my spirit level
of submerged love
sprawled out on the chaise longue
languidly cupping her breast
her body arched like a bow
she sprays cupid arrows
her mouth dares for a kiss and i do
her skin glows with desire as i do
my lips roam her body all over
her lips are jewelled with dew
a sultry night, a spicy feast
there’s no lockdown in my mind
“This is when the first covid-19 lockdowns are happening?”
“Yes. His relationship with the Newcastle woman ends around that time. I think sleeping with me has something to do with it, even though they have open communications and their relationship allows for other lovers.”
“After their breakup, my spirits tell me to stay away. It’s another four months before we get together. There’s still C in Melbourne that he sees occasionally. I try to put her out of my mind, hoping she just goes away as our relationship deepens.”
“So you finally get your joy-flight?”
“Yes. He meets my son. He takes us both up in the private plane he co-owns. We fly down the coast to Bondi and back, it is very scenic.”
“He introduces me to a place called The Grove, another a private property that holds spiritual gatherings and camping events. It’s very beautiful, lush and green with lyrebirds pecking amongst the woodpile in the morning. There’s an outdoor kitchen and even hot showers and a library up the hill. There are lots of interesting people to talk to during the day and around the fire at night. It is very relaxed, with the women often going topless around the campsite and men and women bathing naked in the creek.”
“We spend every second weekend together. We go on bushwalks. He helps me with a website for my spiritual healing practice.”
“Are you happy together?”
“Yes. He volunteers to accompany me to a new earth event culminating on the night of the Summer Solstice in 2020 called the Great Conjunction in Aquarius. The event goes for five days and I run some of the workshops. The first afternoon we made love down by a crystal-clear swimming hole in beautiful sunshine.”
“But it rains the rest of the time. It is very boggy and unpleasant camping. He is very supportive, despite the cold and wet. He writes a poem about my psychic powers.”
Inquisitor Notes: A transcript of the poem follows.
Shrouded in mystery, oh Puma
prowling through my thoughts
Padding through my inner rooms
Tripping steel traps of knowing
Shaman of dark and light
Divining the channels
Channelling the divine
Oh Warrior Healer
Read me, fuck me
Intuit me, find me
Reiki me, hold me
Tantalise and ecstas-ise me
“It sounds like he learns quite a lot from you.”
“We discuss things like the power of manifestation and listen to people like Joe Dispenza, Wallace D Wattles on wealth and Neville Goddard and Florence Scovell Shinn.”
“What do you mean by the power of manifestation?”
“When you unite a clear intention with an elevated emotion, the universe provides you with what you want.”
“You mean if you want a house or a car, you can just wish for it and it will happen?”
“Provided you are in an emotional state of love and gratitude, yes.”
“That sounds too good to be true. What stops someone from wishing for a new house right now?”
“Nothing. You just need to be in the right emotional state of love and gratitude. It has to be for the good of all. And you cannot specify how or when it will happen. It will always come from an unexpected place, at an unexpected time. You have to keep yourself open to all possibilities and follow your intuition. You need to have faith and the universe will deliver what you want.”
“I see. Please continue.”
“We listen to the Game Of Life by Florence Scovell Shinn, read by Lila. Florence wrote a lot about this and on other topics like the power of the spoken word.”
“And he agrees with these teachings?”
“Yes. And he sees parallels in science and physics. You have to ask him about that though.”
Inquisitor Notes: During inquisition #8, [THE SUBJECT] refers to the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum physics, where an infinity of possibility suddenly collapses into a single reality. Combined with the so-called “observer effect” in science, this is suggestive of human thought being able to produce reality out of a quantum world of infinite possibility.
He claims that the view of biblical mystic Neville Goddard that “consciousness is the only reality”, is starting to be taken seriously in science. He gives as an example Bernado Kastrup, a physicist who says consciousness creates matter, not the other way round. Also biologist Robert Lanza taking a similar view with his concept of Biocentrism.
He also mentions anecdotal examples from his own life, such as the return of his son from brain death.
“A few months later we fly to Ballina in his plane to attend a love festival at the foot of Mount Warning. We bring our own tent and hire a car. Again it rains some of the days but we enjoy the workshops. Cacao temple nights, ecstatic dance, naked yoga, that sort of thing.”
“We spend some time in Byron after the festival. The camping ground we stay at is like something out of the movie Apocalypse Now, in the jungle with drugged-out hippies laying about. We drive up to Noosa for a day, it is a long drive but worth it, we explore the headland park. He writes me a poem.”
Inquisitor Notes: A transcript follows.
Your insouciant lips invite me
To thick-grasp your tumbling hair
To tug back your head for your neck to kiss
And for your eyes to shut, and for your mouth to part
For your lips to brush the incendiary landscape of my longings
“It seems that he finds you very arousing.”
“We are easily aroused by each other. We enjoy being in nature. One day we walk naked down a rainforest path to a beach in the national park and make love amongst the tidal pools.”
“Another time we climb a sand-dune, he is nude and I am wearing my bikini. We reach the top and see whales breaching in the nearby ocean. It’s spectacular. We make love out there in the open, on top of the dune.”
“We make love on a SUP while floating down a bushland creek, both of us completely naked in the sun, having left all our clothes back at the campground. Somehow we manage our lovemaking without capsizing the paddleboard.”
Third Interview:
“So you are together for six months?”
“Yes.”
“How does it end?”
” There’s this guy that used to be a friend of mine who takes inappropriate photographs at a festival. He’s called out on it. One of the women asks for her photos to be deleted and the photographer keeps making excuses not to do so. The whole festival hears about it and the organisers get involved. But it never really gets resolved and the women feel very let down.”
“[THE SUBJECT] is supportive of the women and helps draw up a code of conduct for the organisers to stop this ever happening again and tells the photographer to delete the photos. And the photographer does delete some of them.”
“But then at another event a couple of months later, [THE SUBJECT] goes over to where the photographer is camped and gives him a hug. It is like he forgives him and wants everything to be right again. To forget the whole thing ever happened.”
“I’m furious with him. That kind of thing can never be forgiven. Especially since the photographer never properly apologises and is basically allowed to get away with it.”
“He says he thinks the photographer is basically a good person who made a mistake and shouldn’t be shunned forever because of it.”
“I don’t agree and it festers beneath our relationship from then on. A month or so later when I’m over at his place, we have an argument about it. He says he won’t be told by me what to think.”
“So I pack up my things and leave. I drive to a friend’s property in the middle of the rainforest and stay there for the night. I expect him to call but he doesn’t. I stay at my friend’s place for a second night and then call him to ask if we can talk about it. He says yes and I drive back to his place.”
“We lie on his daybed together and I try to patch things up. But he says he thinks it won’t work between us. He says I have a betrayal wound that will always be sitting in the background of our relationship.”
“I ask him if he has told anyone about our breakup. He tells me he texted C about it. Then I realise the whole photographer thing was a trigger for something else that was worrying me even more. This woman C in Melbourne. I’m angry and leave.”
“This is the woman he tells you about at the start of your relationship, the one you hope will just go away?”
“Yes. All during our relationship he is hoping that I can accept it, especially since she lives in Melbourne and is in a relationship of her own.”
“But I am wounded. I was betrayed by my former husband. He had affairs behind my back. The fact that [THE SUBJECT] still communicates with this woman feels threatening to me.”
“We previously watch a documentary on Marianne, the woman Leonard Cohen meets on the Greek island of Hydra and his first real love. One of the people interviewed for the movie, says you can never own a poet. And that is true of [THE SUBJECT] as well. He refuses to be owned. To give him his due, he also does not want to own others. I did unintentionally sleep with a young guy early in our relationship and he is fine with it. He is totally friendly with the guy when he later meets him. Whereas I’m different, I need to own him. That’s the reason we can’t stay together.”
“Do you think he still loves you?”
“Yes, he still loves me. My apartment is small and I have some furniture stored in his garage until I get a bigger place. He says I can store it there as long as I like. He still messages me. We talk occasionally.”