A Book Signing: Crazy or What?

When an event organiser offered me a book signing, I’d have been crazy to refuse, wouldn’t I?

She told me she had a table available and would promote it on Facebook and in her shop. I’ve done several book sales at similar events – crystal and oracle card sellers, psychics and mediums, healers and holistic therapists – just the sort of venue where I’d be right at home. Just the sort of venue that draws in an ideal audience for A Mind Beyond Words.

Ours is a strange, eclectic and spiritual town, always with a generous sprinkling of pilgrims, new age seekers, witches, goddesses, druids, pagans and bemused tourists. It boasts the famous Glastonbury Tor, a ruined Medieval Abbey, sacred hills, holy springs and, perhaps, the remains of King Arthur and Guinevere or the Holy Grail.

The book signing will take place in the George and Pilgrims, one of Glastonbury’s most ancient buildings – a 14th century hostelry which used to offer accommodation to pilgrims visiting the abbey, has played host to at least one king of England, as well as Oliver Cromwell and various others of great fame or infamy. It’s reputed to be the most haunted building in the town.

True, the room for the event is reached by means of a winding spiral staircase, so not altogether ideal for a septuagenarian carting a suitcase of books, but such things can be managed.

So what’s the problem?

shambles

Well, on one day a year, Glastonbury is transformed. Long before dawn, gangs of fast-food and candyfloss vendors and their like arrive and set up a ring around the town. The eco-warriors, hippies and goddesses are overrun by car- and coach-loads of very different visitors, many with chairs and blankets, which they set up on the edges of pavements. They’ve come for a spectacle. They’ve come for Carnival.

Somerset carnivals are unlike any others I’ve ever encountered. To say the floats are massive and dazzling is a vast understatement. A seemingly endless procession snakes its way through the town centre, the lights and sound overwhelming the senses and leaving one gasping for breath.

wick

Carbon neutral it most certainly isn’t.

Obviously the town will be crammed all day with people waiting for dark and hunting for something to do as they wait for the spectacle to begin.

Will they head my way?

Will these burger-chomping sensations-seekers be intrigued by a book about a psychic autistic boy and the wonders he’s shared with his old school teacher?

Will I be able to fight my way back across town through the seething crowds at the end of the book signing, still dragging my suitcase, banner and merch?

The outcome sits on a knife edge. It could be a disaster or the wildest success.

Fortunately, I’ve listened to Asher’s wisdom.

“Which outcome would you prefer?” I hear him ask.

And as I tell him that of course I’d prefer the latter, he tells me to focus on that, and to manifest it.

So I will.

Should you be heading for Glastonbury, Somerset on the afternoon of Saturday 18th November, do drop by the G&P, head up the spiral staircase at the back of the hallway and come to say hello. I’d love to see you!

 

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