Destroy the Diaries!

I know, it seems brutal.

The thing is, several thoughts have come together to make this act of vandalism a necessity.

A recent birthday reminds me that my remaining time in this crumpled skin-suit is in its final decades, even if I reluctantly follow the females on both sides of my family in surviving well into my 90s.

Once I’ve moved on, it will fall to my unfortunate children to dispose of all the clutter. The least I can do is to make a bit of a start on that. Besides, those diaries could end up as something of a liability.

Let me give an example of what I mean. I’ve been an avid reader of The Seth Material, channelled by Jane Roberts, for many years. I’d been used to reading in her husband Robert Butts’ copious notes that certain sections had been deleted, as they concerned personal matters. When I discovered that, some years after Jane’s death, Robert had made the decision to release the deleted texts for publication, my feelings were very mixed. Part of me was (is) eager to discover new wisdom from Seth, but should their personal discussions with Seth be made public? Shouldn’t Jane have had a say in that?

It left me wondering how certain people would feel if my private journals, containing details of not only my life, but that of Asher, our families and others, were discovered and made available to the public by someone who saw a market for them?

Believe it or not, I’ve had more than one person say something to the effect of, ‘I’d give anything to get my hands on the Asher Notebooks.’

Creepy!

I happily divulge huge amounts of my telepathic discussions with Ash, along with much of the earlier material we shared face to face or via phone and email, if I feel it will be helpful to other readers. That, though, only happens with Asher’s express permission and with careful editing out of names or information one or both of us prefers not to share with others. Many of the parts we feel to be suitable have already been recorded for posterity in either A Mind Beyond Words or the forthcoming follow-up, The Realms Beyond Words, which is currently in production.

The thought of some stranger leafing through our private conversations and my still-more-private musings, though, makes the book-burning a necessity.

Ah, but what little gems I’m discovering as I time-travel my way through those early volumes! (Yes, obviously I read each one carefully before consigning it to the log burner, and retain any pages that feel too significant to destroy.) How often I’ve gasped as a simple observation made in 2009 or 2013 enhances or expands upon something I read or listened to a matter of days ago. That, of course, is how ‘time’ works.

“Time doesn’t move in a straight line,” Asher reminds me, frequently. “It spirals.”

Just as the ‘right’ book, podcast or article arrives in our lives at exactly the moment we need them, so particular long-forgotten scribblings turn up at the very time when I’m looking for clarification of some recently discovered idea.

The disappearing journals are commemorated in the miniatures pictured here, which I sell on my bookstalls as part of my handmade merchandise selection. I’ve always loved model making! The tiny wooden trays are just 4 cm/1.5 inches in diameter and display a pile of notebooks topped with a copy of ‘A Mind Beyond Words’, showing the vital part they played in the book’s creation.

And why the little candles? As well as signifying the Light Asher brings from The Realms, they are a cryptic little signature from me, which might be understood by German speakers!

As I read on through the records of earlier parts of my life, I suspect that a fair number of future stories here will incorporate material from those yellowing notebooks. I owe them a huge debt of gratitude.