Published Articles
Nick has published many humorous, Spiritual articles over the years in various magazines and newspapers. Here are two examples...
Free Sausage Rolls and Warm Beer
Nick considers his own immortality (or is that immorality?) and dares to think 'outside the box'
I've been thinking about my funeral. Not that I've been feeling unwell or anything, but I am fast approaching 40, and these things need to be considered in case I get run over by a steamroller. I suppose if a steamroller did flatten me at least I could be buried in a large envelope and would save money on a coffin.
Funerals appear to be quite a lucrative market and I am surprised that big businesses have never got involved; they could sponsor all aspects of the service:
"This funeral is bought to you in association with Mr Whoopsie's Ice-cream Parlour - a real taste of heaven."
Vacuum cleaner companies could also get in on the act and make themselves some spare cash:
"Ashes to ashes, dust to dust - can now all be removed with the new super suction bagless vacuum cleaner at all good hardwear stores."
A friend of mine attended a funeral recently where the man in question had suffered a long illness, and had organized the whole service himself, even down to a letter to be conveyed by the vicar.
"I will miss you all," it read, " after the service you are to go to the pub, where I have left £200 behind the bar for you to have a drink on me. All that is, except my best friend Norman Retallick, who has been a real tight wad all his life and never once bought a round!"
Now thats leaving with style.
I quite fancy a Viking send off. A coffin in the shape of a long-ship would be good. It could be set alight and floated out on the nearest boating lake.
Why can't I have a round one?
The real truth, of course, is that, 'I'm as dead now as I ever will be.' Life is eternal. I will merely shift in consciousness (normally only achieved after 8 pints of beer). There's a good chance that I will attend my own funeral anyway and look down from the 'other side,' just to see who's bothered to turn up for the free sausage rolls and warm beer.
A close uncle of mine died unexpectedly. For a while after he'd left us I found it hard to come to terms with. One night he visited me in a dream. He took hold of my hand and placed it on his beard, this was his way of telling me, 'look, I'm fine.'
"Don't be so intense," he enthused, "I didn't laugh enough when I was on your side, but here it's great, I can do anything I want, I can even fly. Cheer up you big cuckoo and get over yourself." At this point he started to leap around the room ecstatically. He looked like John Cleese with a wasp in his pants...
his arms and legs pumping up and down and coming out at right angles.
"I've never felt so alive!" he chuckled.
I laughed and laughed. He wasn't dead, far from it! I woke up with tears streaming down my face, and found it even funnier when awake. (Mrs R. however, wasn't so amused to be woken at 3 o'clock in the morning by her husband, braying like a donkey - but don't worry - I smothered her with a pillow and she soon dropped into a deep sleep!)
If I choose a burial I will insist on a fog-horn being placed in the coffin with me, just in case the doctors have it wrong and I wake up, I could just give a few blasts. Passers-by however, might wonder why they can hear a ship in a graveyard.
In the end I think I will choose a cremation. I would like my ashes scattered the length of the wines and spirits isle in Tesco's, after all, that seems to be where I've spent half my life.
One thing is certain: I don't want any long faces at the service, so strictly no horses...
Other aspects of my own funeral to be considered are: Do I want to be buried or cremated?
Why do coffins all have to be the same shape anyway? Why can't I have a round one? Or, to be different, a guitar shaped one? In fact, Marital Aids companys have missed a trick here, imagine the marketing possibilities if they made coffins,
"New from Erotic Marketing:
The Vibrating Coffin. Be coming while you're going!
For Spiritual Writer Nick Richardson delving into a past life proved to be a case of hair today – gone tomorrow
I'll let you into a secret; I’m a baldie! A slap head! As my kids tell me, “Dad, you’ve got a hole in your hair.” It’s so bad the top of my head resembles a poorly made crop-circle. As the years have slipped by, I’ve resigned myself to the fact that I’m beginning to look more like Gandhi than Gandalf.
I know why it’s gone. It’s a throw back to a former life I had as a monk in France. Why couldn’t I have had a more glamorous carry-over? - A scar down my face, given to me by a swarthy pirate, or teeth marks from wrestling lions when I was a gladiator. I’d have even settled for webbed feet after a life in Atlantis. But no, not me, I end up with a terrible monk’s hairdo. You could call it a case of tonsure-itis. (Can my jokes get any worse?) In fact my hairstyle could be classed as a ‘comb-over’ from a former life. (Of course they can!) Still, I suppose it might have been worse. I could have been an Egyptian eunuch…
In my current life I am partially colour-blind. Yet this was far from the case in my monastic existence. Under hypnotic regression I revisited this past life.
Stained Glass Window
The first thing I was aware of was my sandaled feet, and I could feel the cloth of my rough habit against my skin. The clarity of my surroundings was tangible - a large empty monastic room, with very little adornment. At one end was a huge stained glass window that I would sit in front of. As the light shone through the multi paned panels, it would refract into vivid hues of brightness.
As an older man, I had gained knowledge of how to become the separate shades. I could meld my consciousness into each individual shaft of illumination, mixing my energy with that of each colour. I could change my vibrational frequency to become each separate particle of light. (Here it is interesting to note that years later I read how in medieval times the glass used in gothic churches and cathedrals had a particular luminosity, which cannot be reproduced today. It had the capacity to filter out harmful ultra-violet rays and even in poor lighting conditions it managed to retain a clear radiance. Modern glassmakers have tried to recreate this phenomenon and failed, somehow the secret has been lost.)
After a while I projected forward in this monastic lifetime, to when I was in my mid-fifties. I was in the main body of the church. I realised I wasn’t alone. Someone was hiding behind one of the stone pillars, almost afraid to show himself, as if he might get into trouble for being there. I asked this person to come forward. A young face with a cheeky grin peered around a column and smiled. A spark of recognition ran through my mind. I knew that this was a young novice that I had taken under my wing and we had become close friends, almost like a father and son relationship.
Since doing the regression I have also seen him in meditations. He normally appears suddenly, does something funny or rude, that makes me laugh, and then disappears.
Last year I interviewed the talented psychic artist Patrick Gamble and he agreed to paint one of my spirit guides. Although we had spoken at length before hand, I had not told Patrick anything about my beliefs; in fact he was adamant that I should not talk about myself lest it should influence what he was to paint. After an hour of being in trance and painting frantically, Patrick finally turned the picture around to show me. It was my monk, exactly as I knew him, and had seen him on numerous occasions. It was incredible to be looking at a face that I had seen in my head hundreds of times. How can somebody paint an exact likeness of what you have seen in your mind?
His portrait now hangs proudly on the wall amongst the pictures of various Grannies, Granddads and kids, definitely one of the family. Some habits obviously last a lifetime… or two…or three.
www.NickRichardson.co.uk
