24.5.2009

The Sun Also Rises

 

    The Sun Also Rises

http://www.netsaga.is/media/files/spiritspirit.mp3


    Shortly after reading a story from Koestler's case-book on coincidences, I found myself involved in an equally poignant situation which had relevance to the original story.

    K's case concerns a mother whose daughter was jilted for the second time. The mother could find no way of comforting her or stopping her tears. She went into the kitchen to get a drink praying desperately for guidance but realizing she was usually inarticulate in such situations.

    Waiting for the kettle to boil she distinctly heard the words:

    - As the sun sets it also rises.

    At the time she accepted this without astonishment and only afterwards did the full impact of that voice come over her. Returning to her distraught daughter she gaveher a drink and said the words: -As the sun sets, it also rises. They appeared to calm her daughter.

    A year later her d. was getting married. The m. booked the reception at a Jacobean country mansion recommended to her. Because there was insufficient sun to enable suitable pictures to be taken at the church entrance, the wedding party went to the garden entrance. Cut into the old stone of the door lintel under which the happy couple were posing was -As the sun sets, it also rises.

    Like the m I too am inarticulate in such situations, though I feel deeply. What a gift it would be to be always able to come up with appropriate words of sympathy at the time they are needed.

    About a week later I received a call from a woman whom I had known through work for some years but had not heard from for some time. She was in the middle of a harrowing time. Her husband had left her breaking up their 20 year relationship, which she had come to consider secure. Not only that, he had left her less than a week before she was due to have a serious operation. I was appalled by the news but try as I might, I could not think of the appropriate words of comfort which the woman so obviously needed. In the middle of the night the words finally came to me with such force that I was immediately awake and alert and writing them down: -As the sun sets, it also rises.

    That day I went to a florist to order a bouqet of flowers to send her. The assistant showed me catalogues with so many arrangements and different types of flower that I was completely confused-I am a floral illiterate. For some reason, an arrangement of orchids attracted me, so I sent them with the quotation hoping it would offer some comfort.

    I was rewarded with a joyful phone call from the woman who said out of all the advice she had been given by friends and wellwishers, these words had had the most profound impact. But she asked why orchids? I said they simply seemed to stand out from the rest.

    She laughed and explained her question: -I'm working on a book about orchids and I have details about them all over my desk - they have been on my mind so much. In fact having to think about them is the only thing that keeps me sane. Then your orchids arrive...

 

    Known Criminal

    Ann Rule, an American police reporter agreed to write a book about a mass-murderer who, police claimed, may have killed more than 30 young women. When the murderer was eventually caught ande convicted, he turned out to be a close friend of Rule, Ted Bundy.