Andromeda Dreaming by Chris Green
It was a warm Wednesday in September. I was walking the dog in St Peter’s Park. I spotted Tristan Dev on a seat eating his lunch. Tristan could tell straight away from my demeanour that I was feeling a little below par, and he asked me what was wrong. I explained my recent disappointment over our house sale falling through.
‘Open yourself up to the universe,’ Tristan said. ‘You will discover that things begin to fall into place. The universe only knows abundance.’
This sounded encouraging. Abundance was something I felt I could live with. Despite Rover wanting to get back to the stick game, I asked Tristan to elaborate.
‘It’s all to do with cosmic energy,’ he continued. ‘What you must do is learn to connect with the cosmic forces.’
In the time I had known him, I had noticed that Tristan appeared to get over his own problems easily. He possessed an inner calm. He did not get flustered. So, I followed his advice and took the plunge. I opened myself up to the universe. I started dreaming of Andromeda. I had, up until now, been under the impression that action brought good fortune. This was how it was, according to the Syd Barrett song from Piper at the Gates of Dawn. But, from what Tristan was telling me, it appeared that the reverse might be true. You should let the universe make the decisions.
Things began to change, just as Tristan suggested they would, but they did not change for the better. Things came flooding in, but not in the way that I had hoped. They were not the right things. First off, I lost my house keys in the car park at the transcendental meditation centre and thus found myself unable to get in to prevent our house being flooded through Leanne having left the bath tap running. To make matters worse, I discovered that the house insurance had lapsed the previous day. I had failed to register that the renewal was due because, I suspect, I was dreaming of Andromeda. The insurance company had little sympathy with my protestations that they may not have sent a reminder. Next, I lost my job on the maintenance team at Briggs and Mortimer, and although I quickly found another position at Job Done Building Services. I quickly lost the position though as I was constantly dreaming of Andromeda and, as the gaffer, Jimmy Juke explained, not getting the job done.
Take my word, once you start dreaming of Andromeda, you find it hard to break the habit. If you have a tendency towards Andromeda dreaming, it is important to balance this out with discipline and routine. Tristan had not mentioned this. He omitted to tell me that you also needed to be rooted, to have your feet on the ground. But, of course, you need to be careful here. You must not be too inflexible. Being too set in one’s ways can easily lead to stagnation, frustration and, as a result, you become a magnet for negative energy. This brings to mind the tragic case of Dale Loveless, an acquaintance of mine who was so downbeat that his life became a procession of disasters, which in turn made him even more downbeat. Rumour has it Dale was the inspiration for that hapless fictional character, Wet Blanket Ron.
It is not, therefore, a simple case of being open to the universe or closed to the universe. You need to be open to being open or closed to the universe, dependent on the circumstances. You clearly need to develop a strategy which takes all factors into account. Mindfulness might be the key. It seems that mindfulness amalgamates dreaming of Andromeda with sprinklings of rationality. Mindfulness focuses attention on the present moment, therefore on the task at hand. If I had been focussing a little more on the present moment and not recklessly dreaming of Andromeda, perhaps I might not have had the accident with the blue tractor on the blind bend in Leafy Lane on the way to the Sparklehorse concert. The one that landed me in hospital with multiple fractures. Perhaps I shouldn’t have been playing the CD of whale song on such a dangerous stretch of road.
Following these episodes, the obvious answer would have been for me to take a reality check. The problem was that, having started dreaming of Andromeda, it was difficult to stop. I found myself distracted pretty much all the time. Concentration on the mundane became impossible. My thoughts meandered like a restless wind inside a letter box. Where did that come from? Oh, yes. On and on across the universe. I’m sure this must have been how John Lennon felt when he wrote the song. Perhaps he had had a friend like Tristan, who told him he should connect with cosmic forces.
I decided to contact Tristan to ask him how he managed to balance his life. How did he keep the restless wind in check? I called him up, but repeatedly found that his phone was switched off. Why, I wondered, was this? It was not until a week later when I was walking Rover in St Peter’s Park and still irrepressibly dreaming of Andromeda that I found out. Lying on a bench was an old copy of the Gazette with the headline Unlucky Strike. It said Tristan Dev had been struck by freak lightning during a Tai Chi workshop at the stone circle at Avebury. What cruel irony in a universe that only knows abundance. I wonder if it is time to stop dreaming.
Copyright © Chris Green, 2021: All rights reserved
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