All below mentioned books are available at:
www.createspace.com/3712092 for Charlotte
www.createspace.com/3712096 for Fergus
www.createspace.com/3712098 for Rhanna
and also at:
www.amazon.com and www.bookdepository.co.uk
As soon as I was able to read, which was at a pretty early age, I devoured books. Birthday presents? Books. Sinterklaas presents? Books. At nineteen I landed myself in paradise by becoming employed in a bookshop.
Inspired by meeting authors, I picked up pen and paper and experimented, writing in my mother tongue, the ancient Frisian language. A newspaper published some poetry, twice I won the Rely Jorritsma award for short stories, for a students' magazine ('De Harpe' published by the Students' Society 'Bernlef' in the city of Groningen) I started to write book reviews and co-organised many evenings with renowned authors. All of the above resulted in an invitation to join in co-editing the literature magazine 'Hjir'.
Gradually more publications followed, including a novel:
'PIZZA'S OF BOEREMOES' (Koperative Utjowerij, Boalsert, FR, 1988), ISBN 90-6570-197-4.
In the meantime I left the world of book trading in the knowledge, that I could surround myself with books and literature by other means and in 1989 life changed radically: I graduated as Social Worker and emigrated to the spiritual community of Findhorn in Scotland. Involvement with people took over from books and literature.
Two full decades later, during the winter of 2009-2010, a friend wished to explore her creativity through writing. I volunteered to help her along the way and set up a schedule for a novel: 12 chapters, characters and their development, geographical location and we started writing. Circumstances changed and I ended up finishing the novel myself within three months. The well of creativity had been awakened once more with two big differences:
'LOVE OR LUST I (according to Charlotte)' was born. Although, its initial title was:
'BLESS YOU, LADY CHARLOTTE (from the bottom of my heart, from the depth of my vagina and to the detriment of my fibroids).'
Two months after completing the novel I knew the story was not finished as yet. Just before Christmas 2010, whilst performing cancer treatments in Wales, book three finished under showers of tears. Its main character rose straight from my heart and soul:
LOVE OR LUST III (according to Rhanna)
Book number two in the trilogy saw the light of day in May 2011:
LOVE OR LUST II (according to Fergus)
About a month ago, on a Friday just after 5 o'clock in the afternoon, I felt weary after a full week of performing healings. I was alone, didn't feel like cooking and took the bus to Inverness. The Indian restaurant 'Cinnamon' is relaxed and therefore relaxing.
I had taken pen and paper with me to see if another novel wished to be born. If so, would it result in something along similar lines as the previous three or was a totally different concept wishing to emerge?
I had a great time and left the restaurant three hours later with the first eight chapters set up of a totally different kind of project.
If you return to my Home Page and click on Publications – 'Cancer a Healers Perspective, Insights, stories and messages of hope', you will find detailed information about a non-fiction work I published Easter 2011. This is available at: www.createspace.com/3590138
Also in the non-fiction department I intend to publish more works, like the one I am currently working on: 'Go Forth and ….. '. This will be a small New Age publication with the emphasis on the physical and psychological functions of our body and their psychosomatic impact on our well-being.
More lies dormant.
The BACK COVERS of the three novels read as follows:
LOVE OR LUST I (according to Charlotte):
In her mid-fifties Charlotte tries to escape decades of stifling marriage and leaves London with its luxury and hypocrisy. She settles in the Highlands and finds herself in a land of legends, myths and folklore, on the back of a quad-bike, live on BBC TV and chasing independence, empowerment and sexual fulfilment.
LOVE OR LUST II (according to Fergus):
In his mid-twenties the stoic and down-to-earth Fergus battles with sheep and snow and split loyalties. Sexual awakening heals him initially, then confuses him and tears him apart. Does he have a choice in the unfolding of his own life or is there no other choice than to follow fate.
LOVE OR LUST III (according to Rhanna)
In her mid-twenties and of Pictish descent Rhanna is stunningly enchanting. She lives the life of fauns and fairies, of myths and legends with her concerts, compositions and her harp. But, what really inspires her and drives her forward, is the search, if not hunt, for healing, sexual healing.
CHAPTER HEADINGS 'CHARLOTTE' TOGETHER WITH SOME QUOTATIONS
1. Rather Two Broken Wrists Than a Broken Spirit
David never let on in so many words that he was unhappy with me, but also not the opposite. Definitely not. Criticism overruled praise. No, worse. There was no praise. The "I love you" only when I asked directly and practically put the words into his mouth. Come to think of it, "I love you" never came out of his mouth. Only "Yes" in answer to my question "Do you love me?" Had he ever loved me actually? Had anybody ever loved me?
2. Swimming Forwards and Backwards
I jumped off the swing and lowered my body carefully into the ice-cold river. Carefully. There it was again. What was I always so afraid of? "Be careful." "Be good." Never simply 'be'. Parental voices chasing spontaneity in forgotten corners of my psyche. When would I ever be able to wash off the cobwebs of decades?
3. Stewed Tea with Rice Milk
He stretched out his hand and poured the full warmth of his candid gaze on me, reducing me to trembling helplessness. His face and body, his youth, the sensitivity and kindliness in his eyes, his easy-going manner. I found it all so arresting. I wanted to touch him, to feel the strength of his arms around me, his hands all over me and to look long and uhurriedly at him.
4. Of Pleas and Promises
My head dropped in the corner between the window and the back of the seat. Automatically both legs drifted apart just a bit. My mind returned to his outstretched legs and fantasised them wrapping around me, whilst his lips were all over me.
5. Cows, Sheep or Women
Had this become of me? Resorting to a plastic object to find sexual satisfaction? It felt sleazy, dirty. Its red flashlight accentuated the atmosphere of Amsterdam's red light district. And then its whirring noises. But within a couple of minutes it had given me an orgasm and I managed to relax.
6. Riding the Fences
Opposites battling about in my heart, which David had noticed that first time. It gave him the power to realise his wife's wavering and he'd slashed my heart open by saying: "I'll give you some space but you shall return to me. I know that and so do you and you know that to be the ultimate truth."
7. Paradise in the Highlands with Sprained Eyes
All that needed expressing had been expressed. To undress in front of each other had less of an intimate charge then the conversation. I was allowed to admire his body and he was allowed to view mine. .......... Had we inadvertently reached mutual agreement of acceptance? Whatever the case might have been, we had achieved freedom in togetherness.
8. Philosophy of a Peewit Chick
The teenager matured rapidly. It had been lust, lust, pure lust, which had driven me prior to our quad bike outing. Lust had stimulated fantasy and vice versa in a maddening cycle, barely allowing space for inner reflection. The shift during and after that Sunday was remarkable. Calmness entered brain and loins. The stillness in my head was remarkable. The entire day had been remarkable and its memories painful.
9. Flower of Scotland
Women's roles on the battlefield in the olden days had been to care for the wounded, to wipe the warriors' brow, quench their thirst and fill their stomach during and after battle and to pray and paint prior to the fight. It was a non-heroic dedication, fulfilling in its sacredness and that was exactly my sense. There was indeed a sense of serving a higher purpose to the pre-match ritual as well as an intimacy of a different kind than I had ever experienced before.
10. Much Obliged, Sir, Madam
"Charlotte ..... I trust you ..... I trust you, Charlotte ..... Charlotte ..... I ..... trust you ..... Charlotte ..... I ..... trust ..... you."
11. Veil of Infinity
And when he came, the bull across the river chased all his females into heat and mounted them all in a row. The ram herded all his ewes in a corner and took them all, one after the other. The cockerel crowed incessantly many an hour before dawn and all his chickens lay wind-eggs. The border collie barked, waking his parents from a normally undisturbed nightly coma. Not a single bit of my body was ignored. And I came. And I came. And I came and the veil of infinity encapsulated our togetherness, excluding all else.
12. From Heaven to Hell and Back Again
"Maybe one day you'll understand me fully. I do. I understand me fully and I am so grateful for that. I understand myself and therefore I love myself."
CHAPTER HEADINGS 'FERGUS' TOGETHER WITH SOME QUOTATIONS
1. Goose with Knitted Socks
And with that the bugger took all of his teeth out and displayed them next to his plate. Of course on the side where she was sitting. From where I sat bits of Knorr vegetables and some threads of spit were clearly visible.
2. Split by the Burn
The strain on us was becoming too hard to handle. Maybe I should move in with her and put our relationship and the one with my parents on a different footing.
3. Vaseline's Made Redundant
She could be a fusspot, also with lovemaking. Do this. Do that. Go a bit gentler or slower or faster or deeper or less deep. Her instructions often made it hard to keep an erection. For her it was easy peasy. Just lie there and let me do the work. Still, no complaint. She had me discover lovemaking and I loved it.
4. Drifting Back Inside
Never in a million years would I admit that to her. Keep her ignorant to a large extent about farming. Keep her especially ignorant about my real thoughts and feelings and especially about a lot of what I got up to, because she was not going to like some of it, a lot of it. She was not going to like a lot of me and would disapprove and then, that would signal the end.
5. Bacon Butties and Jam Butties
Mum's dry socks warmed feet instantly and I went back downstairs, found a packet of bacon in the freezer, unwrapped it and stuck it in the frying pan. Separating the rashers was impossible, but frying it in one big lump would do just as well. Dry feet and the smell of bacon. Life wasn't that bad after all........... When I lifted the half pig onto the plate, the outer rashers curled and separated. The ones underneath it were still practically raw, Wouldn't do me any harm.
6. Queue, is That Clear
'Women.' I thought, shook my head, straightened up and headed for the door. Mum's soft voice slowed me down. Just as well for what I saw stunned me to bits.
He lay on the bed with his leg hoisted up and in plaster. Mum sat next to him and held his hand. She held his hand and he let her. She spoke quietly and he listened without interrupting. They touched. That was a new one for me.
7. Mother Slapped One and Licked One
Was it any wonder his question surprised me? I'd happily look after her, because I began to see Mum with different eyes. Especially now Charlotte was on the back-burner it would ease my sexual frustration. It wouldn't work in the morning. Too much to do. The sense of duty too strong in her obedience of him. In the evening. I'd help her dry dishes and put them away. Something he never did either. That was going to put her in an approachable mood.
8. Meet Priscilla Presley
She told me the most intimate things and I didn't have the foggiest how such things worked for a woman, so how would I know how to react? Like this now again. She'd told me ages ago that her periods had finished and then followed a couple of hours of stories, explanations, details as intimate as I never held for possible about her first periods, how much she had bled and how scared she had been, how intensely painful her cycle had remained throughout.
9. Ardclach and Dulsie
Hand in hand we watched the young woman, silhouetted as a crucifix against the bell tower, her feet in our footprints.
She mumbled a vaguely audible word when we got in the car.
I didn't dare ask whether or why she had said 'macabre'.
10. Burning of the Clavie
Did she open her heart to me for the sake of her soul?
Did I open my heart to her for the sake of my soul?
Did she reveal her soul to me for the benefit of her heart?
Did I reveal my soul to her for the benefit of my heart?
11. A Tough Cookie on Two Wheels
In the absence of a bunch of flowers I decided to act as one, showered, shampooed, soaped and brushed teeth thoroughly and wore only a dressing gown.
12. Hot Toddies and Predicaments Far Hotter Still
"Dear ones, seen and unseen ones, return ..... return ..... return back down to earth to be amongst us, to beam your blessings into our beings, into our souls, for our souls to be enriched ..... And you, dear audience, show faith throughout the second half ..... Some of you shall need it ..... Some of you may fill with fear, others with exquisite joy ..... Some of you will learn to love deeper than deemed possible, others will learn to hate with similar intensity ..... On whichever side of the spectrum you'll find yourself, do not suppress for truth is required when the time is nigh ..... And the time is nigh ..... You shall experience tonight a night never to be forgotten."
CHAPTER HEADINGS 'RHANNA' TOGETHER WITH SOME QUOTATIONS
1. Bat
She stood and watched. Her lips were squeezed together ever so tightly and eyes moist. Our scene on stage probably changed dawning suspicion into definite knowing. Wide open eyes showed bewilderment. The points of her hair trembled ever so slightly. A sign of shaking knees? Whatever was really going on for her, she looked the epitome of being totally and utterly flabbergasted. Taken by surprise in a way only elemental forces were able to stage manage, which they had done in this case.
2. Bats
The legs started to jerk and kick involuntarily and I heard a voice, deep and sonorous:
"Thank you, dear one, for coming to us once more. You shall be healed from all suffering. Our intention is only to prepare you for what lies ahead. May peace be with you."
3. One Final Bat
That gaze must have been scary, for I felt rage inside, a barely uncontrollable rage and it was, come to think of it, pretty miraculous that I only spoke. Where I had felt the hollowness at the end of the dream, I now felt surges of power, raging like a volcano. If they'd be unleashed, God help me. God help him too, for he'd bear the brunt of it. Fear for him changed into fear for my own torrents and their destructive capacity. I knew what they were capable of. I knew what I was capable of in such a state and I was scared of what my body kept hidden, even from myself.
4. Clava
Each stone was a friend. I knew all their cracks and crevices as they knew mine. Stonehenge had had the same effect on me. And before I had entered the great pyramid in Giza, I'd spent the morning walking around it, touching, stroking. Familiarisation was unnecessary. I knew all their shapes and sizes intimately as they knew mine although I had never set foot in Egypt before.
5. The A9
Only the dark memories of the Highland clearances, where death and deceit still ruled in every rock and piece of mortar. No fern or nettle had yet been able to cleanse the destruction of clans and their rootedness. Women and girls raped. Men slaughtered in front of their eyes, young boys put to slavery. Not with chains and balls around ankles, that would have been too open and honest a declaration.
6. As in the Olden Days
I grabbed his old and shabby coat with both hands and shook him.
"Your side of the temple you have desecrated intentionally. Mine has been by accident, even without me knowing and definitely without my permission. Why couldn't you wait? Answer me that."
7. Is That Really What You Guys Want of Me?
Victim and perpetrator existed in the one body, my body. Each one was unjustified to either blame or persecute the other. Therefore each one was powerless. Therefore each fought a silent, tedious and especially aimless battle in my head, playing tricks on my brain, splitting me into two equal halves with none able to escape the other. The silent battle, screaming inside, gave no respite. Therefore, I had no choice but to kneel and wait.
8. The Holy Trinity
Their loving affection repelled me. How could they, my friends for life, expect my body to mix with theirs, virtual strangers, joining juices into a threesome excretion of pores and whatever other orifices. The idea alone, combined with their syrupy clinginess and thus highlighting physical exclusion, made me freeze. I wondered what it would take for me to thaw or for me to allow them to thaw me out.
9. Pleas and Pleases Sickened Me
"Listen carefully, read my lips: you and I will never be a couple and never again will I be tempted to have you make love to me. Nor any other man. Nor any other woman. My mind has been made up. Human beings cannot be trusted, especially not the ones who appear to be ever so genuine in their pretence by covering up their true intention with falseness. Stay out of my life."
10. On a Mission to the Blinded
Why did I have to crawl into the womb of this creature called woman, whom I once upon a time had called 'mother'. In order to avoid harming her, I bit my lip and tasted blood, my blood, whilst I yearned for hers.
11. On a Mission to Perfection Personified
He took a couple of steps in my direction. His eyes were dead, unpredictable in their emptiness. Five more steps and he was within my reach and I within his. To cross infinite distance took eternity. If it was bridgeable at all. And if, whose pillars would carry the bridge? Whose mercy? Whose atonement? Or was the bridge a mere castle in the air, suspended from cloud nine, reaching from cloud cuckoo land into the realms of illusion?
12. There Was Neither Mist Nor Darkness
With a grin of cynicism I saw balance in the naked female bleeding and the dressed male kneeling. What a picture come to think of it. A scene and setting of mythical proportions, suitable for selling millions world-wide as both poster and postcard. The grin disarmed disgust and I proceeded to finger myself.