Meeting of the Rubble Club 29th December 2008

Hello, Rubble Clubbers and thank you for waiting patiently for me to open the meeting. I, Madge Dumpling, world-famous pet rock whisperer and Rubble Club Chairman, have been suffering from a violent chill which came upon me during my last rock-gathering expedition. The east wind took me by surprise and knocked me off my feet. I took a tumble down the Blackpool Promenade "Cliffs" and as I lay gasping at the bottom, the chill took hold of the back of my neck and entered my little body as quick as a shivering flash. Since I arrived back home I have been sneezing and snuffling and coughing, and forced to be permanently confined to my bed cupboard with a bag of dried gooseberries(a famous Undergrowby remedy for the chill). I even lit the fire. Well, it was a medical emergency, after all, and my friend, Doc Leaf is asleep for the winter. The pet rocks have been left to their own devices for days, but it seem, miraculously, no great harm has come to them. However, thanks to the healing effects of time, gooseberries and the Dumpling magic, I am now well again and the gravel tea is back on the boil. I have added a few gooseberries to the tea and to the rock cakes as a preventative measure to ensure you do not catch my chill. Over the weekend I did not feel up to baking, and could not have conducted the meeting for coughing. Now I am well again and unstoppable.
Thank you for all your good wishes and news reports. Linedancer, my dear head prefect, thank you for remaining constantly alive and alert. It is a great comfort to me to know you are out there, observing and invigilating over the membership. I wish you great success, happiness and absence of chills in the year to come.
Granny Gray told me about the visit from two important members, Joe and Emma, and I have had correspondance which alerts me to the fact that Granny Gray has been handing out bottles of pet rock fizzy drinks instead of the new umbrellas I provided for her treat bag. Those fizzy drinks were supposed to have been returned to a neighbour's over-stocked dolls house from which I 'borrowed' them (the tops were faulty and ....uselessly....refused to come off), but Granny Gray must have had other ideas. I am sorry, therefore, if the useless and purely decorative bottle caused trouble between Mr Niggles and the others. I wish you better luck to come in the New Year!
And now on to the Dumpling magic breathing techniques. If you manage to do this in one, it will be more down to good luck than good management, but I will take you through a simplified version of 'launching the Dumpling' and we'll see what happens.

Just below the skin and above the flesh and muscles there are invisible pathways running everywhere, and if you could see them they would draw a map similar to the map of Undergrowby, but with lots of extra pathways, like fine lace. During the course of the day and night, your ever-busy inner Dumpling wanders around these pathways in a predictable order, clearing them and polishing them till they shine. It keeps your body and mind healthy and without its good work you would not be alive. When you are doing your Dumpling Awareness practices, it comes under your control for a while, so it is good if you have some knowledge of "special treat"pathways so you do not waste its time for nothing. The Middle Way is the pathway I am thinking of when it comes to launching your Dumpling into the invisible realms.

The Middle Way starts and ends at the tummy button. It travels down, through the mid-line of your body, dips between your legs and rises up along the line of your backbone to the tip of your head and then falls forward down the mid-line back to the tummy button and deep into your belly again, to the Palace of the Dumpling, to which it returns thousands of times in a day, and where it keeps all its treasures.

For this exercise, using mind and breath, you will encourage your Dumpling along the pathway to enter the radiant launching ground which sits just above the crown of your head. Normally it only enters this pathway when you are relaxed and asleep, and launches itself into the shimmering land of dreams, and it is very much against its nature to accomplish this feat while you are awake and tense. For this reason, you may be unsuccessful at first, but if you can devise a way of putting yourself into a very relaxed state, you will have a much better chance of success. I recommend gently stretching, bending and twisting every muscle and joint in the body in every possible direction, or dancing about like a tree(in private) for a very long time. You will. I trust, no doubt find your own way.

First, through subtle squeezing of your tummy muscles, locate your Dumpling and encourge it to find its way along your tummy button to just below the surface of your body behind the entrance to your tummy button. Then, visualise the pathway branching up and down the centre line of your body and if it seems confused, point the Dumpling downwards. By pressing down into your belly with your lower chest muscles and diaphragm, think of moving your Dumpling down, down, down along the path. When you can imagine it down below, hidden somewhere under your bottom, flick your seat muscles inwards to hold it there for a moment. Every time you breathe out, push it down firmly while you prepare the next leg of the journey.

Then, by curling your seatbones under and flattening your waist backwards as you breathe in, encourage the Dumpling to climb the pathway up from your bottom centrally along your backbone. When you feel it arrive somewhere around waist level, stop flattening your waist backwards and allow the natural lumbar arch to return to your back. It will drive the Dumpling upwards with every in-breath, up, up and up to the back of your chest. Keep breathing it upwards with the in-breath, flexing and wriggling the spine if it gets stuck anywhere. If it gets stuck at the back of the neck, pull in the chin tightly, making the head bow down, opening the back of the neck and thereby alowing the Dumpling to travel upwards to the top of the head. Be mindful of the in-breath when travelling upwards, (and the out-breath when travelling downwards). The breath, second only to your mind, is your most poweful and important tool. The in-breath makes things rise and the out-breath makes things descend more easily.

The first time you lead your Dumpling along the Middle Way, do not linger for long at the top of the head, but allow it to fall naturally down the mid-line of the front of the face, neck, chest and back into the tummy button back home again. Then it knows you know the Way correctly (and so do you), so you can both relax better into the next journey. If I am honest, I have to admit that you may have to practice tracing the Middle Way with your Dumpling many times before it comes naturally, and this is a good thing to do anyway, to help unstick any sticky areas in your body and mind and clear your way forward in life. It is a helpful route to know when, one day, you are afraid you may be near to death, because it is good to know your Dumpling(the real you) can survive in or out of the body, and will survive death quite intact.

When you are adept at the Mid-line journey, and the Dumpling seems happy to linger at the top of the head and bask in the shimmering glow of the celestial lunching-ground, breathe very gently and when the moment feels right, gather a long in-breath as if changing gear ready for a powerful launch. Clench your seat muscles strongly as you expel the out-breath, to impel the Dumpling upwards and outwards into the space above your head where it will become fused with the magical invisible world of what we loosely refer to as the heavenly realms. It is always good to go there and no harm can ever come from this practice. What happens after the launch is always different and I will never know what you discover about the invisible world unless our Dumplings happen to bump into each other while they are on their travels.
If your Dumpling fails to launch, relax and try again another day. It cannot be forced. My own Dumpling refuses to launch quite often, but usually it is when I have too many other jobs I should be doing and my mind is not as empty as it might be. I just trust that when a Dumpling knows its coast is clear, and my jobs are done, it will launch. It is not without its own intelligence, and as it, like myself, is composed of mind-stuff, it seems to be able to read my mind as well as I can read the Undergrowby Gnews. Undoubtedly, one day, Rubble Clubbers, the launch will happen, and if it has happened once, it can happen again. I wish you happy travels, and many returns to a very happy home, for the sake of all the many more pet rocks who will be living in it in the coming year. May it be a jolly happy, healthy and prosperous one for us all. I remain your faithful friend and dutiful chairman, Madge Dumpling.