Seventeen years ago today, I had a Spiritual Breakthrough and it all began at a table outside the above coffee shop in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. A Rastafarian put his foot on the table and said 'Where you from man?" "Cardiff but I've been working in London for the last four years" "You?" "Kensington Man, Big Explosion, go look" he nodded his head towards the flickering images on the television screen in the Rasta Baby. I approached like a zombie in a trance. Stock footage, Police Library pictures. I shook my head, I knew it was bad and it was. I went back to sit down and with that the Rastafarian said "Hey, I got six toes", he whipped his sock off. He did and all! I got up to go. I left my two travelling companions, an Ecuadorian from Stockholm and Dave from Manchester. I had only known them a short while but I was never to see them again. I was 'igh on de erb' and I was about to get much higher. I don't know how many days in to my Shamanic Trance Journey I started singing the song below but I know that I was singing it before I got assaulted by the Dutch Police.
7/7/2005 happened on a Thursday and on 10/7/2005 I was assaulted by a Dutch Police Officer at the Politie Amsterdam-Amstelland, Marnixstraat 148, 1016 TE Amsterdam,
I had gone inside to ask for directions to the British Embassy. I was told that it was shut on a Sunday. I raised my voice an octave and said "Gentlemen, I do not feel safe in your city" I was pushed out through the main door above, it took three of them mind. Just as they thought that they had got rid of me, I walked back in, put my hands together in a prayer like manner, bowed and said "God Bless You".
One of them, the fat, asthmatic one was obviously not a believer, he pulled me in, pushed me to the floor and punched me to the back of the head. "Do you want to go to Prison, Do you want to got to Jail?" he wheezed.
"Well you fat bastard, seeing as you asked, I think it should be you going to prison for assaulting a visitor to your city".
I had a copy of the Sunday Independent in my hand with the pictures of the 52 people that had been murdered in London, the previous Thursday. Once again, ejected and dejected I started singing 'By the Rivers of Babylon'. Why this particular song?
I can only surmise that I had a spiritual breakthrough on 07/07/2005. Seventeen years on, I am still trying to work out what I should do or where I should go to give service to a higher power. I cannot call myself a Christian but like Carl Jung, 'I don't need to believe in God, I know'
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