Beyond the Sphere

…Or International Man of Mystery Part III

Not long to go now, before we reach the end,
So please stay with me, my patient friend…

Some time shortly within the New Millennium, or after the year 2000 to make it clear, I started to visit Mind, Body and Spirit exhibitions. I’d have tarot card readings done, my aura photographed and read, ribbon readings, and I was introduced to Cosmic Ordering. And witchcraft. Well, spellcasting, which is a kind of similar thing.

Firstly, I’ll write about the spell. I bought a boxed spell from a Mind, Body and Spirit exhibition in Manchester. It was for a new job, as the company I was then working for went through a restructure, and because of my shyness and inept interview skills I was told I couldn’t do the job that I’d done for a number of years. To say I was fed up was an understatement, and I just wanted to try something different. The lady in the spell stall asked if I wanted an interview spell to go with it, even though the new job spell was pretty potent on its own. I said I didn’t, and would just go with the one spell.

When I got home, I left things for a few days, but work was getting worse and worse, so one night, at the end of my tether, I opened the box and read the instructions. They went into detail of how to invoke the Goddess and the God, and open and close the circle, when to anoint and light the candle, and an incantation to read aloud as the candle burned. I did everything as instructed, and then waited in the room with the candle until it had fully burned down. Then, I closed the circle, and went to bed.

For the next couple of days in work nothing changed. It was as bad as it ever was. People were in the wrong positions, and mistakes were being made all over the place. Three days after casting my spell. I was called into a meeting with two other colleagues, and told that as a result of the company losing a multi-million pound contract because of all these changes, they needed a team to monitor what was going on, and offer help and assistance to anyone in the new teams who needed it. We were told to go away and think about it, but I made my decision there and then. This was the new job I had created for me – no interview needed.

After a couple of years of doing this job, another restructure took place and I was made redundant. I didn’t mind as I think it was, at the time, my time to go. And with the redundancy payment, I was able to take a full year out, which I fully enjoyed. At the beginning of this year off, on a celebratory night out, I met and had a good conversation with somebody who I discovered later to be a rather influential businesswoman. She told me not to take the year off, and if I needed a job, her friend owned a recruitment company, and she would be able to set me up with a job. I’d made my mind up regarding the year, but said I would keep this offer in mind. She told me the name of the agency, and her friend, if I needed to contact them.

The friends I’d made over the years gradually drifted away as I was no longer working, but that didn’t seem to bother me. Due to my shyness, I’d always liked my own company anyway, so it didn’t really matter.

Towards the end of my year out, I needed to start looking for work again. On another night out, I started chatting with somebody else who I’d met several years ago one Christmas Eve. Talk turned to work. I told him about my situation, and he told me that he worked for a recruitment agency. I knew instantly, without him telling me, it was the same one I’d been told about earlier. It was a small agency, and one that not many people had heard of. I asked him if it was this particular agency he worked for, and it was. The look on his face when I asked was quite comical; shocked and amazed at the same time… there are a lot of recruitment agencies around. I then asked if the businesswoman’s friend still worked there – and she was this guy’s director.

I made arrangements to call in, and went for a few interviews. Some I needed to lie down in a darkened room after, as I really am inept in interviews and tend to get walked all over. Interviewers are meant to bring out the best and encourage, but all the ones I go to seem to do the opposite. However, just before one interview, I decided to ask the Universe for help. I asked that I get a job, and after the interview I get a sign telling me that I had the job… the sign being a rainbow.

I had the interview. It was very comfortable. I felt relaxed. It was late on a Thursday evening. I left feeling content, walked around the corner of the building and in the sky in front of me was the biggest, brightest rainbow I had ever, and have ever, seen. I knew I had this job. On the Friday, I received the confirmation, and started the following Monday.

For part one, please click here.
For part two, please click here.

…Or International Man of Mystery Part II

If you’re still here, it’s not all gloom
As you’ll find out very soon…

Soon, I started my working life. First on a youth training scheme which brought all of the school days straight back to me, so I left after a few weeks, I was able to make my own choices and I wasn’t going to have that. The scheme was meant to be art, design and printing – the reality? Cleaning toilets. Not what I signed up for.

After a few months of not working, and claiming £25.00 a fortnight, I started my first proper job. I have mentioned all of this briefly in earlier posts, but I’ll quickly go through the details again. I worked on Directory Enquiries, sitting there hour after hour, day after day, reading telephone numbers out. Dull as it sounds, it did have its fun days.

There was a slight down side to sitting there and eating the rather large portioned meals they provided in the canteen – my weight ballooned. Up until this point, I’d always been stick thin and gangly. Now, I had trouble squeezing into the chairs – and they were rather large chairs.

One of my colleagues suggested I go on a sponsored diet, and rather than being taken aback and affronted by the suggestion, I readily accepted. Ten weeks followed of rigorous exercise, healthy eating and weekly weigh ins. The colleague who suggested the diet was there for most weeks to weigh me and encourage me. One week she was on holiday, so another colleague stepped in, and rather than taking the reading from the scales as the first colleague had, she said the scales were always slightly out, so corrected the weight reading by adding on the pounds they were ‘out’ by, meaning that week I hadn’t lost any weight. I chose to ignore this week, and carried on regardless. The last two weeks of the ten I took as a holiday, and used the time to buy new clothes in bold colours which really made me stand out. It was the Eighties at this point, so bold colours were all the rage.

I returned to work in my new garb to gasps of amazement from all of the other ‘call girls’ as we were called… some thinking I was a new employee. I liked that reaction… up until my two weeks off, I’d been wearing my normal ‘fat’ clothes, so my weight loss was disguised.

Even through all this, I was still shy – that has followed me throughout my life and I can’t see it changing now.

One job led to another, and it was during this third job I began to experience the magic of the world. Or was reintroduced to it.

For part one, please click here.

…Or Just Who Is Tom Merriman?

Please gather round for I have a story to tell,
And if you enjoy it I’d have told it well…

Me. I admit, I AM a bit of a mystery. To myself as well as anybody else. Oh, and Tom Merriman? That isn’t me. Well, it is me, but that’s my nom-de-plume. My pseudonym. My blogging persona. We all need masks and cloaks sometimes, don’t we? I do. You see, I’m rather socially awkward.

This current journey of mine began at the latter end of the Swingin’ Sixties, not that I remember any of them. I remember sitting on my Nanna’s knee eating an apple when I was two years old, and that is my earliest memory. If only my memory for things I did yesterday was as clear, but with so much going into our brains it is so easy to lose track of a few things here and there. I like to think so, anyway.

I was born with sticky-out ears, not that it bothered me at the time. I was a very happy child, very curious and eager to learn and to please. I loved learning. Drawing. Painting. But I was painfully shy. I think the shyness kept me somewhat distant from the other children, but it didn’t bother me. I think my distance caused the others not to like me, and soon one or two would start taking their dislike out on me – usually by grabbing my ears from behind, and then the usual kicking, punching and biting. Not very pleasant, and it soon started to affect me. This time, however it was noticed by others.

Eventually, I went into hospital and had, what was at the time, pioneering cosmetic surgery on my ears to pin them back. I think I experienced my first dose of real magic whilst I was in hospital, and I’ll go into more detail of this in part four (Yes, this is a rather long tale!) Following this operation, of which I was terrified – in fact I was terrified of the whole hospital experience – I spent ten weeks of having bandages wrapped around my head.

So, rather than feeling sorry for myself, I’d pretend I was a spaceman. It’s funny, the things you do as a kid.

Every now and then, I’d have a peak at my ears when the bandages were being changed, and I looked completely different to how I had previously. It wasn’t me looking back in the mirror. I looked older. I still liked my drawing and painting, was still happy, and was still shy.

I’m rather protective of that little boy, me and yet not me, going through all that before reaching ten years old. It’s not a lot compared to what others have to go through, but for me it was a big deal. I did it. I didn’t like it, but I did it. I’m going to leave that little one with his pencils and paints now, and head through high school.

Still shy, still loving learning, enjoying art, being bullied.

By this time, I was slightly more outgoing. Gangly and spotty, but outgoing. I had a small circle of friends, but a larger circle around that of what I would call pretend friends. Friends who wanted me to do something for them… or else. It wasn’t referred to as bullying, but that is what it was. Even one of the teachers got involved which didn’t help, but I put up with it. Soon, schooldays were over and I didn’t need to see any of the people from there again. I think I gave up with learning by the time I’d left school, getting good grades in all of my exams but not excellent ones. At least I was out.