Sleepwalking through life

Sleepwalking through life

Francis O’Neill

It would appear that a great many of us, particularly in our western ways, are doubting Thomas’s when it comes to accepting anything strange or mystical in our lives.

Yet when one stands back and takes stock of what is going on, it is obvious we live in very strange circumstances.  Let’s for a moment take an ordinary situation, a public house in the Cotwolds, UK.

Inside there are four people having an early evening drink, one is on gin and tonic, another is having a fruitjuice and the others are on pints of bitter.   They are having a chat about the usual, you know the weather, politics, cars, sport, their jobs and possibly their husbands and wives, with maybe a comment or two about their drinks.   Outside it’s a cool evening in September, a clear sky with the light just fading, and one or two stars now emerging.

Quiet pub in Gloucestershire

We are in the town of Northleach – in the Wheatsheaf to be accurate – where I once served behind the bar – but it could be in a million other places. The Wheatsheaf Inn | Northleach The traffic outside is fairly steady through this small town.  It’s a quiet place anyhow now since the bypass was built around it some years back. 

Some people are arriving home from work from the nearest main town of Cheltenham, while others are picking up groceries, or perhaps an evening newspaper, before returning home for a night in front of the tv, or for whatever plans they have in store.

A lot going on that we don’t notice….

Meanwhile, not that anyone is noticing, this part of the Cotswolds is moving.  It is actually moving and not at a snail’s pace either.  You will have no doubt learnt this in school or college.  The Cotswolds is a tiny part of the UK on the Earth’s landmass – all of which is moving. 

While you are reading this, the planet is moving.  With the Earth turning on its axis so the Cotswolds, nay all of us, with our cities, our countries, our creations, our wars, our beliefs, our stories, with the flora and fauna, the land, the mountains, the seas, all of it is actually turning in space.

Of course we know the theory but we don’t feel it and so we don’t experience it.  We are turning at about a 1,000 miles per hour.  And there is more, for the Earth and we are falling through space around that huge star, our Sun.  We are approximately 93 million miles from it and we are moving near enough at 67,000 miles per hour around it – taking, as we know, 365 days to get right around and start a new cycle.

But further, our Sun and its Solar System, that means us again, are also falling at a colossal speed around the centre of the Milky Way galaxy – the speed is estimated to be as much as 568,000 miles per hour (find out more on Wikipedia).  It is probably fair to say there is a lot going on that we don’t notice.

A tall story…

Back in the bar someone reading the Gloucester Echo newspaper homes in on a story about a man who claims to have driven over a ghost.  For amusement he reads the story out loud for everyone to hear. 

Apparently the ghost was a woman, as ordinary and human looking as the next person.  She had jumped out in front of the driver.  Having no warning he had hit her head-on without much time to break.

What he remembered most was her eyes as she stared at him in the final moments before she went under the car.  But having stopped and, in a very shaken state, got out of the car, he couldn’t find trace of her.  She had literally disappeared.  The driver had then reported the incident to the police and to his amazement they had told him he wasn’t the first to report this happening along that stretch of road.

Must be April Fool!

‘What!?  Is this April 1st?’ calls out our reader.  There are laughs all round. ‘Yeah pull the other one!’ says one of the listeners.  ‘What will these tabloids print next?’ says another. ‘Well we all know who had had one too many – the police were at fault for not attending and breathalysing him.’ says another. ‘Well maybe they tried but he had disappeared when they got there’, says the reader, and at that everyone joined in the laughter – including myself…

And the Earth turned a little more on its axis, and we were all a lot deeper in space… 

What a beautiful moment of merriment in time – but was the story so unbelieveable, so improbable after all?  Have we really got a handle on this life stuff that we know for sure what is possible and what is not.  Do we even know where we are in space right now?  I think we need to keep an open mind!  What do you think?

Associated links:

Astrology and global unrest
Lucky escapes or the work of Guardian Angels?
A Tour of the Moon
The Overview Effect
The Man who moved the World
The Illusion of Reality


Scroll to Top