I'm trying to fix my music video workings, which have decided not to play what I want. In the meantime, you get streamed music tv. I deny responsibility for what you get, until I sort out the normal stuff. Sorry if needed!

I discovered to my chagrin, that this entry has been posted before. I found it in my word with 'draft' at the top, and decided to post it. Then with a growing sense of deja-vue, I scoured my archives and found it already there! I see a couple of new visitors have commented, so won't pull it now. Anyone who's read it before, just ignore. My brain is on auto-pilot right now as is probably clear!

'Mind body and spirit' is the focus of some of the world's healing practitioners, while much of the west treats only the body, with perhaps a quick glance at the mind only when we start throwing plates around or raving at unseen people in the street. As for spirits, they belong in the increasingly empty churches don't they? Or the table rappers trick book, or the fevered desperation of the recently bereaved.

Others claim that no illness of the body does not have its origin in the mind or spirit, and can thus be reversed by an act of will or an exorcism of demons. Some that our failings and ailments come from long ago, from other lives we can seldom remember. Past life regressions are a growing preoccupation this side of the pond, and when they started were dismissed easily enough since everyone turned out to have been Joan of Ark or Genghis Khan, seldom Sal Fishwife or Sid the pig herd. Nowadays though, ordinary lives are coming out in the wash, adding to the mix of possible soul disorders.

Personally, I know that my mind and body are linked. In the past, when I could only express what was giving me grief in extravagant physical gestures, or by shutting it away, like a balloon filling steadily with water, it had to come out somewhere, and did. It's the same now. My headaches get worse and more frequent, my stomach plays up, my throat begins to feel like the central groove of a speed skating circuit – I’m unhappy!

Alternatively, when I'm happy, I can beat a horse over a steeplechase course, stay up all night singing in a tree, stay patient, stay calm, even eat garlic or let you cut me up in your car with a smile. I ask myself no troublesome questions, and people ask me ‘what happened to you?’  or, ‘Give me some of that’. In short, I shine.

As for my spirit - who knows?  I think its my spirit that lies sometimes at the pit of my stomach and leaches the energy - that screams at me, 'Look what you did!'', that hurts so much.  I hope its only my mind that whispers that I've failed again, that I’m dust - that everything I touch will turn to cold noodles.  Alternatively, which part of me pulls over off the road to watch a kestrel hovering, or runs across a field in the spotlight of a huge and unwavering moon, that tries to jump up and touch it?

Some say the body is nothing but a machine, the mind only a extended function of this machine, and the spirit (soul) nothing but a conjuration of that higher mind, to protect itself from the old old enemy. They say that everything we do is basically for the purposes of survival - even pain or the need to be loved are all there to keep the species going. If this is so - why do we do so many things that lie outside this necessity?

Crocodiles are one of the oldest creatures on this planet, yet, as far as I know they don't paint pictures or write sonnets, they don't cook for one another or gather flowers. They don't sacrifice themselves for other crocs, break their hearts over a well polished fang or run miles across the swampland with a need that is greater than their scaly sides can contain.

What is the purpose of this? and what does it mean? Are we no more than overdeveloped machines? Or is there something else there? If so, does it separate us from the crocodiles, or are we just not seeing the inner beast, in all its heart breaking and unbearable splendour?