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The Guardian: Adventures with Ned was originally written in 1993 as an ode to an old friend. It was meant to rest in more personal archives with my other poems and writings, never intended for the public eye. As a child, adults would laugh and whisper, “How cute” whenever I was caught in conversations with my ‘imaginary’ friend. Whether in Kansas, Colorado, or wherever, my Guardian would follow – and not always appearing during moments of convenience! Throughout adulthood, I have revealed my experience to very few indeed. It is not something the majority of humankind could understand or accept and, in order to avoid ridicule, I had always felt it better to remain silent… until now. About the age of four, experiences began awakening my unconscious mind to an awareness of things outside the conscious self; something beyond the physical realm. As reflected in The Guardian: Adventures with Ned, I was approached by an ancient, earth spirit-type being (not one of the human kind) which stayed with me for about seven years. My family was aware that I had this ‘friend’ and found it quite amusing if not, at times, entertaining. Surrounded by a loving, stimulating family environment, and being quite active socially with my neighborhood playmates, the thought of any neurosis or other psychological disorder was never an issue: Just another normal, highly imaginative child in action! Even so, the time I’d spent with my guide and friend was not a simple, playful experience such as tea parties or a game of hide-n-seek but, rather, an enlightening journey of lessons and insights into things somehow already known. Ned was a teacher, a mentor that brought into my consciousness an awareness of the collective unconscious at a very early age. Perhaps the lessons (taught by Ned) were accepted merely because children are more responsive and open to such things – not being so overly concerned with the conscious demands of the physical which we are all forced into in our adulthood during these times. Maybe recognition, that sense of already knowing the insights revealed, was nothing more than part of the fantasized storyline created through the imagination of a child. Nonetheless, I do know that the experience itself was not just the product of an overactive imagination. The awakening experience of my childhood was not something obtained in a dream – because I was not asleep. Nor did it feel like I was in some state of altered consciousness … nor did what was to follow later in my adulthood. Through the years of adolescence into adulthood, the thought of Ned rarely, if ever, came to my mind. Whenever the memory did surface, I remember considering if it had been nothing more than some childhood fantasy. My thoughts shifted to the consciousness of the fast-paced world around me and little time eventually remained for any form of creative thought. Many an eye-opening experience was to follow as somehow, the unconscious experiences of my youth began to shake this conscious existence … to the core. Eventually, the realization came into being that my childhood experiences with Ned were REAL… |
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About two weeks after meeting my former husband and friend, Ned made a surprise appearance. James was lying on his bed and I was kneeling on the floor beside him. We had been talking of many things when suddenly a puzzled look formed upon his face. His eyes opened wide, and he appeared to be staring at something behind me. I turned my head around sharply and saw nothing. When inquiring about his visible expression, he just shrugged it off saying I wouldn’t believe it anyway. My persistence and curiosity overruled and he reluctantly described this strange gray-haired little man, with a floppy hat and long beard that was looking at him over my shoulder, wearing a huge grin. I was shocked! Struck dumb! James knew nothing of my childhood, knew nothing of my past. He didn’t know any of my family. We were in Idaho. I was from Kansas … he was from Wisconsin. My head filled with questions: How could he see Ned? Even more astounding, why would Ned appear again in the first place? Again, after all these years? Does this mean that Ned was not just some childhood fantasy? That he was REAL? If Ned was something I created in my own unconsciousness, how could it be that James would see him? No one else had ever seen him, even when they were in the same room with us. With the look of confusion on James’ face, I had no alternative but to try and explain to him what he just saw… try to explain how he was now a part of my own childhood experience. Many years have passed since that time. James never thought that I was insane, nor did he feel that I was slightly crazy. And what a wake-up call! Being reintroduced to the experience, my creative side (the “inner child”) re-emerged with great force and I found that words would just float to the surface effortlessly, as if some voice from within was surfacing. I had written many poems, lyrics and other writings since that time where the thoughts were just there, along with a great force that motivated immediate translation. I would awake in the middle of the night with whole, perfect prose formulated in my mind … The Guardian: Adventures with Ned was also written in the same manner, from beginning to end. But that was not enough as I was then compelled to use all my artistic talents by writing the whole story in a calligraphy format, verse by verse, complete with illustrations. (Calligraphy is merely another automatic function I’ve been able to do without instruction: I just picked up a pen one day and started writing in some ancient script as if I had always done so.)
However, it was not until three years following Ned’s appearance to James that the big eye-opener really occurred. I cannot help recall the time when I was separated for years from my two children due to unavoidable circumstances – and the surprise in finding how my eldest had a similar childhood experience. While visiting with me one summer, I kept hearing my nine-year old son talking to someone in the other room at night when he was supposed to be sleeping and when I entered questioning, he would reply that he was speaking to no one. My son was entirely unaware of my childhood experience. Several days later he came to me and told of his ‘little friend’ and how he’d asked if there was anyone he could talk to about their friendship. He had told my son to wait a minute, only to return with what was amazingly described as a short old man with a long, gray beard that hung below his knees and he said, “This is someone your Mom would like to see.” … One can only imagine the elation I’d felt as my son described my Guide and friend to me in the most explicit detail! Having had the pleasure of a similar friendship in my own childhood, I was capable of respecting my son’s parallel experience by avoiding uncanny interference. Likewise, the day my son came to me with tears pouring from his frightened eyes because his little friend said he wouldn’t be seeing him anymore, I was able to offer some comfort and felt his sense of reassurance in my saying, “At least he said Good-bye.”
After having written and illustrated The Guardian: Adventures with Ned, I cannot think of a better way to pay homage to an old friend than to share the experience. If this publication can help some parent to understand, or give some dear child a sense of reassurance when left behind, then the silence was meant to be broken.