Dopey Stories 

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The Bull Dancer

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Mediterranean Fiesta holidays are exciting, even euphoric, but they can also be sad, if you are alone amongst crowds of people who seem to all be in family groups or couples. - The more beautiful or exciting it is, the more you long to share it all with someone special.

The sensuality of the warmth, water, colour, movement and music and the ancient redolence of the Earth Goddess's fertility and nurture, and the masculine virility of the bull, – worshiping, ploughing, inspiring and supporting her, - are emotional and sensual heart-breakers, if you are alone in the middle of these amazing experiences.

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I mingle with everyone watching the young men and boys playing with the bullocks in the square. From all the specially created galleries and platforms, the interest and attention is keen, and thronged beneath them, people daisy chain past each other in opposite directions,- scrunched against the church walls or pressing in and out of the bars, clutching huge doses of alcohol, and wind in and around the scaffolding poles, in the front row, but ready to retreat like a folding fan if a bull charges their way.

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People wave red flags or even white handkerchiefs out between the scaffolding poles and try to attract the attention of the bull and make him charge their way, knowing his body will lock against the poles with a great clang. But with an abrupt stop, a quick change of direction and a flick of his powerful neck, one horn can get through to pierce you, if you are not quick enough to retreat.

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The brave and more experienced players are out there in front of the poles, or even in the centre, hiding under a platform built too low for the bull to get underneath, but which he can jump onto if he has a mind!  They work in teams with friends, protecting each other with distraction techniques if things get too hairy, and to see if they can dance with the bull, almost drawing him into a fast slippery circle, keeping touch on one of his horns. They know his physical movement possibilities and limitations, and they can twist and sprint away in their sports trainers more flexibly than the bull can turn on his clattering hooves with all his weight of ire and irritation driving him over the hard concrete floor.

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I hear roars of applause and appreciation for a long-danced horn contact and excellent backup support from the team members to allow the lead dancer to escape safely. Gasps of adrenaline, rock around the square, and the people flex back behind the poles like a wave, as the bull gallops past.

Afterwards, I sit alone in a corner of another ancient and picturesque square, in one of many ebullient street restaurants, cafes and bars, sipping my Carlos V brandy.

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Finally, everything quietens down, but it is too far and too expensive to trog down to the beach nightclubs for dancing music and more drinks till dawn. Anyway, they are somewhat forlorn during Fiesta, as everyone stays where the action is - with this special, once a year, summer solstice fiesta - in the Pueblo.

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In empty shops and hollow buildings in process of renovation, locally created bars are run by 'teams' from each street – the 'Penyas'. They each have a special costume cum uniform with their pet street team name emblazoned into a logo on the shirt.

But I am not young and don't have good enough Spanish to be able to catch the jokes and chat with them. So now I am walking back to my house, in a silent and empty side street.

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This trip I am renovating and getting some sun, sand and sea. The work is mammoth - but having assessed it, I know I will not be able to do it all during this stay. But until it is done, it cannot be let and stands empty and unused.

As I slowly amble down the street in the languid heat of the night, I see before me, sitting on a wide stone step, leaning against a very old arched double wooden door, a young man who has been dancing with the bulls. He has a back pack stacked beside him on the worn stone step. As I pass, he calls to me and asks me if I have a light for a cigarette. I smile and wander over to provide it and he offers me a cigarette too. I don't really smoke much, but I decide to sit and talk for a while.

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He has come to the pueblo specially to dance with the bulls, - it’s his passion and he follows the Fiestas everywhere, as much as he can, to dance with the bulls. He is from Portugal - where they still really dance with the bulls, - leaping over the horns in acrobatic twists - just as young people did in ancient Crete in the Minotaur's Knossos lair. I am fascinated! I didn't know they still did that anywhere. He shows me a photo of himself and the 'team' in the arched stone ruin that is the Portuguese bullring, dressed in a gorgeous gold satin costume, just as ornate, if not more so, as the bullfighters of Spain wear. One photo catches him in full upside down flight, on the bull horns. I never liked the traditional Spanish bullfighting, and hate the way they injure and kill the bulls, but I think this dancing, playing and acrobatics is wonderful.

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It turns out he has nowhere to stay and will sleep in the park or a field somewhere, so I invite him to use one of my spare rooms. He is young and very good looking - if you like the guy Jamie from 'The Doors' - who he is very similar to! So I am happy at the prospect of some company – at home, and for parts of the Fiesta – perhaps - ?

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I work on the house in the cool morning and then after brunch tapas in the best of market bars, either go to the beach and coves, or get into whatever is happening with the fiesta – different each day and evening.

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At night there are some fantastic bands playing, - sometimes three a night, in the main big square, and many streets and 'penyas' also put on their own choice of music, both live and recorded.  Local folk music and dance is well represented with fabulously costumed troubadours with traditional instruments, and luscious classical voices, parading around and serenading the ladies and the young girls who are this years 'debutantes', in front of their own homes.

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Many streets have a street banquet laid out - all down the centre of the street and everyone contributes a table and chairs and food and drink. As a visitor to the street, you may be invited to partake and offered drinks, often Sangria, and to stay and join in their local dance.

Friends visiting for a couple of days, thought it was great for me to have company for a while and since they had a car they took me and the bull dancer out to beaches and restaurants further away along the hills, and they thought the bull dancer was charming.

 

After they left, the bull dancer danced every bull dancing session there was, and started to talk with other groups of young people in nearby streets and get invited to their fish-fry, paella, ensalada and coca lunches and also he went to busk with his penny whistle in the square.

He made sure the fridge was full of cold beer and sometimes we would cook together. He cooked extremely well. His mother had taught him, he told me, and I sampled some Portuguese specialities.

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He would spend Siesta time resting up for the evening thrash, listening to music and drawing unusual designs. He asked me if I would like to visit his family in Portugal. They have a farm. He said he missed his dog and there were many big dogs on the farm his father kept.

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He said it would be good to go there by train as that way you really see the countryside all the way.

I told him about my health problems and that I didn't believe it was good to have animals in the house, - tribal people don't do this - they know better - animals belong outside, not on your sofa or in your bed. Dr.H.R Clark says that most of western sickness is due pollution, but combined with that, the animals, giving us parasites we wouldn't otherwise have, and so I didn't keep any pets at home.

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He obviously had very little money, but he was very scrupulous about not abusing my hospitality, and never used any of my food unless I offered it, and he contributed food and beer from his busking. I learned that the previous place he had lived, he had helped a family who had a shop and driven their kids to school and so on.

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There were bicycles in the house and we went down to the beach by bike along the olive, almond and orange orchard lanes, past beautiful high stone walls, over the dried river beds, and collected the larger back pack he had left there, to bring back to the house.

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Of course I was  totally enchanted at this change in my lone status, with a good looking star of the bull dancing, and was happy when we naturally started sharing a bed. To be touched, cuddled and to sleep near a beautifully muscled, tanned, young body, was a great treat.

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He had a few problems making love, as he had been ripped by a bull horn right in the groin and when they stitched him back together they had to stitch it very close into the body. So getting turned on was not the pleasure it should have been! - it was also painful! I recommended lots of massage with special oils and special aromatherapy oils also, to repair the tissues' elasticity and gradually stretch the skin back to a more naturally relaxed state. I am a very patient, adaptive and gentle lover and had just finished my massage and aromatherapy course, so I think he was in luck! As I explored this body I noticed it was scarred everywhere, from encounters with bulls, walls or window grilles.

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Well, eventually he suggested it: that he could work on the house in exchange for staying there - and he would just pay his water and electricity consumption which wouldn't cost very much... And when I came back in 6 weeks, it would be all done and then we would go to stay with his family in Portugal. He asked me for all the details of how to pay the water and electricity.

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I came home and things happened in my life that meant I couldn't go back for two and half months. But he seemed content to stay there, even though there was no more bull dancing. We didn't speak much, as money for mobiles etc., was not really an option. I wrote to him a couple of times and he wrote to me once. I let him know when I was arriving back. 

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When I arrived there, mid-afternoon, the curtains were all drawn, the front door was locked, the lock was broken and the handle was off it. As I struggled to think how I could get in, and where was the Bull Dancer, - a man from a nearby work shop saw me and wandered across, looked at the problem, fetched some tools and helped me break into the house.

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I could see the Bull Dancer hadn't painted the outside, as had been agreed, and the man told me that he had been getting into the house by climbing up a rope! - onto the first floor balcony - since the front door had broken.

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I went into the house and went into shock...

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Beside the front door was a plastic bowl of mouldy dog food, a collar and lead, a muzzle, rubbish and plastic bags of stuff. The lights were ALL left on!

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I moved forward into the kitchen, assuming the freezer door was left open because it had been switched off and cleaned, so it wouldn't go mouldy. But the freezer was still on with the door gaping wide, and revealed the ice covered internal light, amazingly still functioning! - illuminating a cave almost completely full of glaciers with strange brown orbs and green and red unidentifiable objects suspended in them, which turned out to be frozen kiwi fruits, grapes, lettuce and tomatoes.... Funny place to put salad and fruit? - in the freezer ?

There was dirty washing moulding in the machine.

The sink was full of dirty dishes,

Much rubbish was stacked by the bin.

Old opened food mouldered in the cupboards with the dirty pots and pans.

No patch plastering, sealing or painting had been done on the ground floor.

I gathered my courage and slowly walked up stairs...

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In the sitting room, all the lights were also left on and the curtains drawn across, shutting out all daylight. I turned off the lights and drew back the curtains. There was dog shit in the corners and dog shit on the balcony. The furniture was all dis-arrayed and all the wool mats gone.

The sofa was covered with a blanket – thank goodness. There was a cushion on the floor. It appeared someone had lived, as if sat on the floor in a cleared space, with a little board for smoking equipment on the floor in front of them. I realized later the mats had all been shat or pissed on, so that’s why they were cleared out.

I gathered more courage and slowly walked up another floor.

Beds were unmade. Where was all the linen?, I wondered. Bathroom walls were mouldy and un re-painted. Shower curtains mouldy. The front bedroom balcony also had dog shit on it and another bowl of old dog food.

The back bedroom blind and curtains were ripped down.

I staggered the last staircase to the roof terrace...

More dog shit. The wool mats were piled up in a corner, exposed to whatever weather. All the linen was in a damp, stained pile on a sun lounger. All plants were un-watered. Leaves and dust were solid on the floor.

As I slowly went back down through the house, I noticed a stringed musical instrument from Africa, hand-painted, - sold on the beach for tourists - left hanging on a nail on the landing wall.

 

I went to my favourite tapas market bar and ate and thought, and recovered a little. Then I went straight to the police and asked them to come and look at state of the house. I made a full report at the police station. Then they told me to go to the Guardia Civil, as it was not their Policia problem - they are just to do with making money out of parking tickets and so on. I cycled down to the Guardia offices. They came next day, by which time I had sorted out the rubbish - (as I recycle everything), and found syringes. The Guardia took a full report and saw all the dog shit etc... and did nothing.

I went to the town hall and asked advice from the citizen's advice bureau and was told that I would have to bring a civil charge and employ a solicitor and since I hadn't got a contract with the bull dancer, and it was just an arrangement of 'trust', there was no hope of any recompense or even admonition of him. But in any case there would be no point in throwing money at a solicitor to try and get compensation out of someone who in any case had no resources to recompense you from!

I was told that I could make a public statement denouncing him – a ‘denuncia’, and then I discovered that the shopkeeper's family he had last lodged with, had already made one!!

Over the next few days. as I started to clear up the filth, wash all the curtains, blinds, mats, and run the washer endlessly - trying to see what linen might be saved, a couple of people arrived at the door....

One guy had rented a room there! - and left some clothes and sandals. I had found those in a bedroom and returned them to him. He told me there had been several people there, renting rooms from the bull dancer.

A girl came and asked for some things of hers. I asked if she knew of the missing bike. Oh yeah, she explained, the bull dancer had promised certain things about their space and rooms, and had taken a deposit off them, and didn't follow through, so one day they asked if they could borrow the bike and they kept it, or sold it, to recoup what he owed them!...

No house bills had been paid, but he charged rent for the rooms and sold drugs from the premises, and left all the lights and freezer running and the dog shit everywhere...

 

So what happened?...

The neighbours told me that the Bull Dancer had played music loudly all night and kept people awake - like the baker - who has to go very early to work and gets up at 4 am, and the old retired guy nearby, and the family with little kids not far away.

The Bull dancer was often seen sitting on the front door step, smoking dope, in front of the children who play in the street. His Dog, always on a lead and muzzled, when out of the house and while tied up outside the local supermarket, was once stroked by an old man passing by, and the bull dancer had turned on the man who stroked it and abused him. The police were called by the supermarket to this incident.

The Police had been called by neighbours to the house - several times - and when they arrived they were greeted be the bull dancer from the roof terrace or balcony, and he said “Yes of course he would turn the music down!” and so they went away and they never actually entered the house!

The neighbours said that luxury cars drove down the street that had never been seen before and expensively dressed women went into the house - briefly.

The neighbours said that when the Bull dancer left, he stood at the bottom of the road and shouted at the whole street “Fuck you” and waved his penis at the street.

Anyway, I don't do drugs, so I didn't notice what the bull dancer was up to. Yes I knew he rolled a few joints, but nearly everyone did, it seemed to me, except old spinsters like me!  He had showed no signs of all the filth and depravity while we were together.

He did point out, at one of the main Fiesta concerts, that during an instrumental break, the lead singer went into the stage wings, and he said that there would be line of coke waiting for him, of the best quality. I expressed no interest in this, and he didn't mention it again.

Well some may say “Ever bin had ? ! “, - “ What a con artist ! “, and/or  “It's all your own fault for sharing a bed with him”...

This is one of many 'dopey stories'...

I have had to read Eckhart Tolle's 'The Power of Now' to see the havoc the egoic pain body causes if you don't know it and deal with it. But long before that book, I was learning to forgive and put myself in the other person's place....

Imagine that your greatest pleasure and most powerful motivator, that of going home to bliss - re-joining the cosmic grand creator in an ecstasy through making love,- is totally frustrated and muddled with pain, by an accident of near castration by a bull horn?

Imagine that according  to 'Nine Star Ki', you are elements of both fire and water, which always produce explosions, and are difficult to manage...

Imagine that your dog is your greatest source of pleasure as he will lick you and ask nothing of you. The neighbours saw this going on - before he drew the curtains.

Imagine that your dog is therefore like your woman and you jealously stop her giving anyone else pleasure or knowing about yours!!! - hence perhaps, the supermarket incident.

But I have also seen that I trust people too much, and always believe the best of them at first. Now I know that addictions make you the biggest liar and most deceptive manipulator possible.

But looking at it another way, maybe he was better when I was there because of my belief and trust in him, and the pretty house, and the opportunity, pulled him together briefly.

Maybe he did less drugs in order to dance safely -ish! - with the bulls, and so seemed a different person when I first met him at the Fiesta.... Just the odd spliff now and then.

Imagine if you have never owned a house, or rented a flat, and had that responsibility - what it feels like when someone just gives you a house to use, share and look after?

Then you realize its high summer season. You can run a bar in this house, rent rooms and deal drugs and play music and suddenly you have money to spend on as much of the drugs as you want, (which always gets more of course!) - but anyway now you are very drugged most of the time.

I wasn't there to love him, cook with him, talk to him or be strong about what did or did not go on in the house, so he was lost to only his pain and addiction. So maybe I have some responsibility here too? But I do wonder how he 'set up' the previous sucker, with kids and a shop and what he did to that family exactly ???

But he covered the sofa with a blanket to protect it and he left the musical instrument, and I feel it was a sort of  “sorry”.

So getting sole use of that house in return for what was, by the time I left, relatively little work still to do, and which I quite believe he could have done competently if he had kept off the drugs and chosen to do it, was a temptation he couldn't resist luring me into and I think he saw me coming a mile off!

Don't imagine, just KNOW ! - that drugs do twist your mind and feelings, make you dependent, and cause you to betray all trusts, agreements and responsibilities. “A player only loves you when you're playing”, as the song says.

Eckhart Tolle, in his evolved wisdom, says that without the various 'stuff-downs', he thinks there would be riots and revolutions from people's PAIN, loss and deprivation - just trying to live in a body temple on this prison planet.... But he does also explain how to rise above the 'egoic pain body' and see how its running you, and he explains how it is put in place quite deliberately. I think I can see the programming that puts it there... The 'wedding industry' - of 'ownership' and possession of another person, is part of that!

This brings me to 'Why are you here'? and 'please to see your programming' and get off the deprivation/punishment nonsense and start to know that the Great Goddess wants to enjoy herself, and if that's not happening, you are cheating her and yourself of LIVING LOVE and JOY...

But because of the programming, distortive, non-nutrition-pollution-stress, and reptilian dinners of fear, - money equals pleasures!... We need to take a big over-view about what is now considered as pleasure and bliss? But you cant do that in 'fizz land', so get off the drugs! Do a 'peaceful warrior' revolution...rip up your concrete and grow veg, and don't abuse your beautiful temple, but make lots of healthy, un-drugged love in it - in many modes, and many moods - according to the moon magnet that pulls your fluids.

It's OK to lose yourself, and let go, but don't always just go into automatic for a big O switch off. Have to find the right 'Ki' partners to have truly unique amazing, naturally mind losing, right-brain love experiences - they're a rare-ish gift, so don't put them in the sweet tin till after the TV – they will have melted or gone mouldy and the unique mood moon moment will have been lost!

Healing the physical or emotional wounds takes time, patience, knowledge and discipline, but it is possible. But even more difficult, is to make those choices without the right love, support and firmness, and even more difficult still, when your elements are fire and water and your natural proclivity is for danger and hardship, as the Bull Dancer's are.

He wasn't a rare gift of Ki perfection for bliss for me, he was just a passing Fiesta fancy and life's too short to be fussy and lonely all the time, and throw away your opportunities and learning curves!... It was one big learning curve for me, and cost me much more mere physical work to sort back out, than I was supposed to be doing in the first place.

I called the builder to measure and order for a new door and frame, and paid up all the bills for the three months, kissed the bike goodbye and learned my lesson. But the lesson wasn't not to love someone - it was to know their pain and torment is extreme and my love wasn't big enough to love all that pain away for them, and they have to give it up themselves.

Money was called 'The Twisted One' in ancient Egypt, as it was of no intrinsic essential use or value. And it was illegal before our Greek=western=un-spiritual=non-ethos, weedled its way in, via the murderous Ptolemies... So for the Bull Dancer, money was needed for his pain stuff-down of drugs.  The Guardia and Policia only confiscate drugs to re-sell or use themselves, I was told!  They really don't prosecute people for using or trafficking. And I take my responsibility for being 'needy' – needy of company, love, touch and sensuality. Those are such 'sins' these days, aren't they?!!!... and whose programming got us to believe that kind of twistedness and mental sickness???...

So is it really just my responsibility, that being deprived of the basics of love and touch and anchoring nurture here on an earthly temple, made me vulnerable, and a 'fool' by today's values? 'Dopey' may mean many things, but I am still biased by my programming and can't entirely escape it, to see as equally acceptable or valid, the actions we took?  I work on myself to understand, take my responsibility for giving too much freedom, as I did with my kids perhaps too, and to forgive, but there's still a part of me I catch 'blaming' and being judgmental, shocked, outraged and hurt and that’s my egoic pain body - not entirely dead yet!

But boy, the training is good! and in due course I am going to be a match for non-other than an angel!   And that’s the NEXT dopey story!