The Now is My Plaything
Preface
“There is no truth beyond magic,' said the king.”
John Fowles, The Prince and the Magician
If you ask Mr. Wabbit, theentric character of the poems to come, what this book is about he would say,
“You are a cow. It’s time to focus your pocus, and play some coconut bongos.”
Now, if I were to unfold his cryptic message, which you will learn to do, I would be led down a path, and at the end of that path, there would be a question. That question I would find takes precedence over another principal question, “Who am I?” It would be something devastatingly more compelling than the question, “Who can I be?” It would hold peculiar secrets about each one of us. It would be the heaving force that when the sand is wiped away and the stone door unlocked, an individual would transcend their limitations. That question, the question of gods, is “For what will I become?”
For what will I become strong? For what will I die? For what will I surrender? For what will I love with everything? For what will I become at peace? For what will I become united? For what will I become all that I was meant to be?
If you were to sit with this question at the end of the path, a curious property would be seen. Through time and space, with spirit and trust, somehow we emerge. That property, that distinction of the emergent being, is what this book is about.
This book, an anthology of silly poems, is about a cow and a rabbit whose sentences happen to rhyme terribly. They travel side by side on a journey deep into an unknown place, the place of emergence similar to my journey where I met someone who waited anxiously for me. This person is the reason I wrote this book.
As someone who struggled with ADHD unknowingly for most of my life, it was difficult to accept that I had great potential yet could not function at a basic level. I tried everything I knew. Nothing helped. I still looked for solutions and even coping mechanisms. Typically, there were lots of hype and promises, but ultimately when it came down to helping me behave the way I longed for I was stuck and lost.
Then I found out about hypnotherapy and had a huge breakthrough. I learned about another side of me, my subconscious. It was always there for me though it felt alone. It just wanted me to be there as a big brother. This experience, whatever you want to call it, a placebo or a delusion, helped me begin to emerge. Its usefulness was all that mattered to me.
I wrote this book for my 4-year-old subconscious, to allow him to feel heard, so he could feel valued, to free him to be, to remove my conscious stupidity from interfering with things he knows best about, to suspend my inquiry, and trust him. This was the lesson I had to begin to learn before I was able to complete this book. All of the ideas and silliness came from him. To me, that was so pure. Therefore, this book could only make a single promise, and that is that this book is for kindred pureness. So, if you have a kiddo there is a good chance they will love this book. Maybe, they need something like this, and maybe you do too.
For what will I become?
For you, kiddo.
Christopher Calvin Govender, Capetown, March 2022
Christopher Calvin Govender