Publisher Description

These stories, all based in the factual, apparently real world, started 30 or 40 years ago, when I was 30 or 40, travelling in Rajasthan, where I was again given the opportunity to learn from the cry of 'Jai Matadji!' - Long live the goddess, the eternal feminine! Absolutely! So all, or nearly all, these stories are about the unattainable feminine, who cannot be captured, cannot be contained, cannot be conquered. And of course, all stories are about you. So many stories are about sex or death, rarely birth, because we are only (apparently) interested in the new: birth we have done - it is only death we have yet to experience. And sex, of course, is always new. And while most of the stories we hear are about sex or death, all travel is about change. Ideally one discovers something new of the world, and, ideally, something new of oneself. For many people travel is more about the experience than what can be learned - in the words of T S Eliot, and refreshed for me by John Marsden - We had the experience but missed the meaning. These stories are, hopefully, more about the meaning than the experience.Having said all that, these stories, whilst absolutely true, are fictional, and thus do not refer to any person, living or dead. The use of the pronoun 'I' does not refer to me, the author. And if any of the stories are particularly challenging to process, there are brief notes at the very end. Never, never take the same path twice.

Author Biography

Basil Eliades is a strikingly unique individual who embraces every opportunity in life to learn, teach, explore and reflect. His unstoppable creativity manifests in his painting, building of beautiful houses, cooking, writing, experimental dress sense, and gardening. Alongside his prodigious output of paintings and writing, he works at Candlebark and Alice Miller, teaching chess and martial arts, energy work and fine art, writing and drawing. He loves food, wine, books, music, running, dancing, bikes, and Jane. And daughters Emily and Sarah. This book joins three previous collections of poetry, The Men's Deck, and half a century's worth of scribbles, including a baker's dozen of books ghost written.

Table of Contents

Shaman Ulaanbaatar Mongolia Free ride Italy Diluted Vietnam The Tokyoto Tokyo Japan Into Paris Paris France Opium (Jaisalmer) Jaisalmer India Briancon Briancon France To love alone Karlsruhe Germany The Library London England Learning to feel the night Vienna Austria Black Mountain MonteNegro Annika Sweden The Right of Kali Bloomington Minnesota USA Water Country Vic Australia Two days on the Steppes Mongolia Bath India Breath Sydney Australia The Beijing lists to port China The supplicant (Argentat) Argentat France Post-script Notes on stories

Review

'Literary, beautifully written, meticulously plotted and inventively surprising.' - Kerry Greenwood; 'A little frightening, sometimes immensely funny, and consistently beautiful writing; these wonderful, sensual tales of love, union, desire and transformation throw open the notion of travel and what it means to come alive in a strange landscape.' - Magdalena Ball The Compulsive Reader

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