If you'd rather place an order by talking to one of our cheerful order desk clerks, please call 1-888-232-4444 (USA and Canada only) or 250-383-6864. From Europe, ring our UK order desk clerk at local rate number 0845 230 9601 (UK only) or 44 (0)1865 722 113.

Celebrate Joy

by Anni Dixon

387 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #04-0775; ISBN 1-4120-2947-3; US$30.00, C$34.41, EUR24.50, £17.50

All Nina wants is to die. But when she does almost die, she is gifted with a glimpse into the reality of God. Nothing can ever be the same.

Read more!

about the book      about the author      excerpts      catalogue info

About the Book Nina has lived through many incarnations. She enters this one, with purpose, yet fearful. But events early in her journey obliterate all will to live. All she wants is to die. When, at the age of thirty three, and a mother of three daughters, she does come within a hair's breadth of dying, she is gifted with a glimpse into the reality of God. She vows to transform all that is negative in her life into something positive. Creating of her life a thing of beauty and power becomes her goal and she seeks within the ancient wisdom teachings for the tools she needs to bring about this transformation. As we accompany her along her journey, we travel to India, Afghanistan, Morocco, Baghdad, and Ireland, meet sixties hippies, Tom, Rich, Blue, and a Guardian Angel. It is a tale of tribulation, love, both human and divine, despair, courage, betrayal, hope, survival, and, at last, empowerment. Cover Illustration by Anni Dixon

---

About the Author Anni Dixon lived in South West Ireland for twenty one years. She has three daughters, and three grandchildren. She has studied herbs since 1974, and the healing arts since a near death experience in 1979. She currently lives in London, and practises CranioSacral Therapy, Bowen Technique, Massage, Manual Lymph Drainage, and Healing. She loves to cycle, read, practise Yoga and meditation, and has an enduring interest in organic food growing and simple life-styles. She has also been a student and practitioner of mediation.

---

Excerpts

Prelude

I am a wanderer. And I am a warrior of the heart. I have roamed over the horizons of the Earth, through blazing deserts where the heat of the sand burned my feet, and the fire of the sun bleached my hair; where water and greenness were nowhere to be found. I have roamed through endless wastes of rock and ice where the cold deadened all feeling and I longed to sink down into the bottomless sleep; where dazzling white snow reaching forever blinded my eyes, and I turned around and around myself in confusion and despair. I have roamed through vast thickets of tangled undergrowth and close knit trees, held back by briar and branch, struggling to find a direction through the fastness. And I have roamed in meadows where the gentle breezes stroked my cheek and a million sweet meadow blossoms bobbed and waved around me. I have travelled light, trusting to the all-wise Master of the Universe to bring me to nourishment and rest. And I have travelled laden with baggage... precious objects that grow tarnished and worn by the passing of time; memories, too, and attachments to people and places. I have wandered through the oceans and under the seas, coming to know the pathways carved upon the ocean floor; and explored the inner caverns of clouds, and the uncharted tracks between here and the stars. So far and so long I have dragged my burdens.

I have changed my shape so many times, through all these journeys. I have been rich and poor, garlanded with fine garb, and shrouded in rags. I have been man and woman; adventurer and tiller of the soil. I have fathered children and deserted them, borne others from the womb of my shape and held them too close. I have been respected and kind, and a tyrant wild. I have lived as elephants, tigers, dogs and cattle; I have been the tall trees and the fragile may blossom. I have been nothing but the wind, kissing the forms of Earth. I have travelled the skies as birds of many shapes and sizes. And I have swum in the depths of the sea as big fishes that devour little ones, and as little ones devoured by the big.

I have gathered to myself on each of these journeys a feather, gleaming and rich in every shade of colour. Now these many-coloured feathers each have their place in a spreading, rainbow-plumaged cloak. Through the heart of this cloak I can share the radiance of the sun with you.

Now my wanderings are over. I stand in the place where land and sea and sky become one and their harmonious sound echoes as song through my heart. I am a rainbow-child in wonder. This is my story.

If you will listen to my story with your eyes, and watch its images with your ears, you will find yourself in your heart travelling the wandering road beside me...

---

Chapter Two : In The Valley of Death (1)

Grey veils of rain sweep ceaselessly along the length of the valley. I stand halfway up the mountainside, in the lea of a gigantic slab of rock almost the size of the gable end of our rough, old stone house, the grey, slate roof of which I see far below me, sluiced almost black with the rain.

The steep-sides of the valley are roaring with the constant flow and gush of water, as the rain pours down in a thousand sudden streams, rocks and clumps of heather or rushes, unable to still its restless streaming.

My head leans against the cool, smooth rock of the cave, formed long, long ago, by slabs that slid from the cliff-face above, crashing down to form a tumble of boulders, and caves between the haphazard slabs.

It is bone dry in here, the ground beneath my mud-splattered welly boots soft and buoyant, layer upon layer of decomposed sheep droppings, dry and compressed from generations of sheep lying upon them in the shelter of the rock-fall. Behind me lie bones, ribs and skulls and tufts of dirty fleece. Old sheep matrons have come here to find their last sleep... it is a sheep's house and a sheep's grave. I wish I could live here, away from the humans who plague my heart and soul...

So many times I have thought this thought... longed to run away, to escape into the kingdoms of the animals and Nature, free of the tangled vice of human trickery and ambush. How did I get to be here? How did I lose my way so utterly...

The tears have dried upon my face, tears that refused to cease from falling in cascading profusion soon after I came to live in this mountain stronghold, to please Rich. A valley leading into a dark, black coomb, the mountain ridges steep and high around it, tree-less, un-scalable. A valley bare of natural greenery, only the brown-grey rushes, and coarse amber fenorne. No place to raise children... the soil too thin and sour and stony to grow food in abundance.... Even the nettles I transplanted struggle to survive...

No wonder I too struggle to be happy and healthy and strong.... Although the children seem to thrive... perhaps the freedom to ramble like wild goats around the mountain, leaping from rock to rock, even Melody, my baby, only a toddler, me fearing she will fall between and injure something...

There is a stone behind me, a little further into the cavern. It is just big enough to sit on. My chin rests in hands, elbows propped onto thighs, over which the long skirt of colourful patches, flows.

The rain still sweeps, unceasing... the pain in my heart soothed by its rhythms into acceptance, endurance seeping back into the channels through which my being flows...

I look back, back down the winding tracks that brought me to this place...

Nothing ever seems to have been quite right, always craving some elusive state of harmony...

---

The steward from the Twickenham Anarchists catches my arm and pulls me into a place at a table where he sits with two others. A wave of shyness sweeps over me. The other man gets up to bring more coffee for the three of them.

"What about some chips to go with this?" says the steward.

"I'm skint!" is the brief reply from his friend.

The steward looks at me.

"Got any money?" he asks.

"Enough for two cups of tea tomorrow," I answer.

"The likes of you should be loaded!" is his scornful reply. But his black eyes, under thick brows, framed by lank black hair and a moustache, are friendly.

I try to explain that I've had to save up two months' pocket money in order to come on this march... and suddenly feel self-conscious and childish.

"What age are you?" asks the steward, in his abrupt and direct way.

"God, I thought you were only fourteen!" he says, when I tell him I am seventeen.

I am hemmed in by this group and their casual way of talking. But it is warm and cosy in the café and I don't fancy the street, or the deserted school.

"I'm Jack, and these are Al and Bernie," says the steward. "We're Anarchists. I bet you never heard of an anarchist before."

"Oh yeah, I did. I'm an anarchist too, and I have a friend called Martin who is one."

Jack laughs. I don't understand why my words cause him to react as he does. But I am used to not knowing why I get unexpected responses from people.

Al and Bernie get up to go.

"See ya later, Jack."

"Give us a fag, then, before you go."

Al gives him a Woodbine, lights it, then he and Bernie go out.

"The bastard!" says Jack to me. "He says he's skint because he's too mean to buy me a plate of chips and he knows I've eaten nothing all day."

"I've got some peanuts if you like..." I offer, feeling I should spend my remaining pennies on a plate of chips for him. I take the bag of nuts out of my pocket and put them on the table.

"Thanks." He takes a few, without much relish. He offers me the cigarette, now half gone.

"D'you want a drag?"

I shake my head, gazing at this fascinating being from another world, with a kind of awe.

"Right Mummy's Girl, aren't you?" The laughing scorn is there in his voice again as he throws this at me.

It is like being hit. It is so direct, brutally direct. I struggle to insist to myself that it isn't true. Yet, it hits me so neatly because it is true. And something in me has wanted to accept the cigarette. What holds me back? I try to hide from admitting that it could be the shadow of my mother's disapproval. I am here, free, getting into conversation with total strangers, miles from home, miles from my mother, being myself, doing my own thing... but only for a weekend; and still, in the mainstream of my adventure, contained by the firm web of parental control, approval and disapproval. Only playing at being free...

Michael : Come on, Nina! Embrace this moment of freedom! It will bring into clearer focus for you, your dependence upon your mother's approval. You need to see this, in order to free yourself from it...

Jack is amused at the discomfort he has caused. Nothing seems to phase him. He can see at a glance how difficult I am finding it to get my bearings in the company of people who speak of being 'skint', and having 'fags' and 'drags', and refer to their friends as 'bastards'. I know nothing wrong with this way of being, but I know for sure that my mother would think it wrong, and that knowledge hangs over me and makes me nervous.

Jack is strikingly good-looking. He is tall and lanky, strong, with very black hair, straight, whilst Martin's is curly. He too wears a black moustache, and has a fierce, challenging look about him compared to Martin's gentle twinkliness.

But there is something else I notice about him, less obvious than his physical appearance, and even in contradiction to the rugged bravado of that. It is almost as though inside he is frightened, and trying to hide from that fear.

We talk for ages. He says that the kind of anarchism of Martin and I is no use at all. He says that governments should be abolished, now, here, by revolution that is violent if necessary.

He is good at arguing his case. Like Martin, he can follow through a thread of thought, and bring in all kinds of examples and illustrations. I agree with him mostly because I don't know how to argue.

The café is empty and we have to go. Outside a full moon makes the whole world bright. We meet Al and Bernie in the street.

"We were looking for you," says Al.

"Come this way," says Jack, leading us out behind the street to a gateway, through a field and under the trees. Al and Bernie say nothing, and I follow on, urged by the words Jack has said as we left the café :

"I have to tell you something that I can't tell anyone else." The intense neediness in his voice draws from me compassion and a desire to protect.

We climb steeply up through the scrubby trees, following a well-worn path of damp earth, tripping here and there over roots, and stumbling across patches of rocky boulder. It is hard to see, here in the wood, in spite of the moon overhead.

We come out at last into a small clearing on top of this jutting hillock which overlooks the sea. The lights of the town seem very far below and I am surprised that we have come so far.

A bunker stands in the clearing : a small, round, concrete shack covered over with earth. We creep in through the hole in the wall and Jack throws himself on the ground.

"Christ, I'm wrecked!" he says, groaning from the aching muscles in his body. I feel the same way but don't say anything. I've seen him all day running from one end of the march to the other, carrying messages between the other stewards and organisers.

Al and Bernie sit down beside him, and at last, I do also. There is a strange hole in the floor of the bunker and I am on one side and my companions on the other. There isn't much room and when Jack stretches full length with a few more groans there is even less. It isn't comfortable here, or cosy, or anything nice. I want to go back down to the school and climb into the protective nest of my sleeping-bag, surrounded by all the other bodies that will be filling the space now with warmth and security. But I don't want to go through the trees alone, and anyway, I cannot desert Jack and his plea that he has to tell me something.

Al and Bernie stretch out on the ground, and Jack pats the floor beside him, his smile encouraging me to discard my aloof shyness and lie close to him. He opens out his coat over the hole in the floor and gestures me to lie there.

"You can keep me warm," he grins.

I abandon my Mummy's Girl caution and lie down. He draws his coat around me and holds me close to his body with his long, strong arm. I have no memory of ever being held to a man's body before; I feel his heart pulsing through his woollen shirt, and his breath hushing through the hairs of his moustache.

The trio talk sleepily about the march. They are critical of the Scottish group that has organised it.

I don't join in, not having anything to contribute, and anyway, the closeness of my body to this other, mysterious body holds my attention. Also, I am freezing cold from the knees downwards and trying to find ways to lessen this discomfort.

There is no way of moving without disturbing Jack, because I am balanced across the hole in the floor. If I move away from this I will lose the heat and comfort of his body, yet if I move closer towards him, I will make him even more squashed up against the others.

The conversation dwindles away to nothing. Al and Bernie are perhaps asleep. Jack dozes off, only to rouse soon after. I wonder when he will tell me whatever it is he has to tell.

Hours pass. I hardly feel the cold any more, because I can't feel my limbs at all. From the waist up there is warmth, and Jack draws me closer from time to time, both of us hoping to generate greater heat.

At last the sky pales and here and there a bird calls. From time to time a cockerel can be heard in the distance.

Al and Bernie stand up and vanish from the bunker. Jack and I hardly notice, almost asleep in spite of the cold and discomfort.

But when the sound of them stumbling down into the wood has ceased, the cold seems to become even more intense. I hold myself more tightly in a desperate attempt to keep it out.

"Maybe we should go, too," I ask Jack. He pulls at his coat.

"We'll go in a minute."

I don't know what he is doing, then find he has a crumpled box of Woodbines in his hand.

"Last one." He throws the packet from him, and fumbles in his coat again, at last bringing out a squashed matchbox. "Last one of these, too," he laughs.

"You hold the cigarette and I'll light the match cos my hands are too cold to do both... and don't blow out the match whatever you do!"

I don't know what to do with the cigarette and hold it between my frozen fingers.

"Put it in your mouth, you ninny!"... "...an suck on it!"

I try to do these things, brain and body thick and numb with cold.

The match burns Jack's fingers with its dying breath and he grabs the cigarette from my mouth and puffs urgently on it in a desperate attempt to coax the tiny glow hanging from its end, into life.

He succeeds, and sinks back in relief. I am ashamed at my ignorance of such a simple task as how to light a cigarette.

"Where did you get your education, anyway?" Jack laughs at me. I don't really mind him teasing me, because it is good-natured. I feel that he accepts me anyway.

He encourages me to share this cigarette, and I accept willingly. The taste in my mouth is comforting, even though it makes my stomach feel sick.

"I'm proud to be the one to teach you how to smoke!" says Jack.

He is quiet then for a while. When the cigarette is gone, he hunches himself and I can tell he is more cold than ever, as am I, too. He begins to talk, urgently, the words falling fast from his tongue.

"I have to tell you this thing. I can't tell anyone else... A girl died... I borrowed a friend's motorbike... I always borrowed it... This girl, she got up behind me... We didn't have helmets..."

He talks on and on, fast and jumbled. I don't understand some of the slang words he uses.

But I know that someone died, because of him.

"I do everything to get away from the thought of it, the picture of it... I drink if I have the bread... I walk through the night... I take drugs... I sleep with girls... I have to see this probation officer once a week..."

I don't know what a probation officer is, or what 'drugs' means.

"If your parents knew you were here with me like this they'd lock you up."

I am jolted into the thought of the parents. I can't remember ever being so far from the thought and atmosphere of my parents and their attitudes.

He is going so fast, I can't dwell long on anything he says.

"Thanks for listening," he says, taking my face between his two hands and smiling that curious sideways smile that seems to make cracks in the strong features of his face. Then, he kisses me, briefly and lightly, on the lips!

---

Catalogue Information

---