Beware the Half-Warmed Fish

(Reprinted with permission from http://mysticangelhealing.net)

"We all know what it is to have a half-warmed fish inside us." Rev. William Archibald Spooner

The beauty of the Law of Attraction is that, with focused attention, you can create a miraculous life, full of love and light and, well, fullness itself. You can have exactly what you want in your life, if you are willing to do what it takes to draw it to you. It's a very simple concept that is not so easy to do at first. The good news is that it does get easier with practice. The beastly side of the Law of Attraction is that if you don't follow-through with your beam of focused attention, you'll get the "half-warmed fish."

Apparently in my exuberance to throw open the doors of my heart and make a wish, I allowed my attention to meander a bit. I got a little sloppy in what I was putting out there, so what I got back was messy and a bit of a "half-warmed fish." By this I mean, instead of getting exactly what I wanted, I got sort of what I wanted, but definitely what I asked for by not being specific enough. It manifested back to me as the half-formed wish (or "half-warmed fish") that was sent out by my heart via psychic fax into the universe.

The fish reference is a partial quote by Rev. William Archibald Spooner, a nineteenth century Anglican priest and scholar, who had a peculiar habit of mixing his words up so you understood what he meant, but it wasn't quite right and usually ended up sounding rather comical to the listener. This type of speech pattern is called metathesis, which means essentially, transposing or switching around. Since Rev. Spooner's time, his special way of switching around words has come to be known as a "Spoonerisms."

Had Rev. Spooner lived out his life speaking seldom so that his verbal blunders didn't come into the spotlight, not only would we know less about this speech pattern, but many of us would have spent a great deal less time laughing and playing around with Spoonerisms. I was introduced to this concept from a friend of mine in college (thank you, Penny, wherever you are!), who used to tell the stories of "The Pee Little Thrigs," Wo Snite and Deven Swarfs," and "Rindercella," (you know, the gal who slopped her dripper that was later returned to her by the Pransome Hince).

Fortunately for us, Rev. Spooner didn't hide his gift for unusual speech in obscurity. Instead he became a well-known and unforgettable part of ecclesiastic and linguistic history. For sixty years he lectured at Oxford, and later became a dean and president at the same institution. At the bottom of the page, I will include, for your amusement and mine, links to some of his many oft-quoted transpositions. In the meantime, let's get back to the half-warmed fish.

If you've gone a long time without eating and have allowed yourself to get truly ravenous and probably a little shaky and unfocused from low blood sugar, you really have to be careful with yourself. If you go into a restaurant, sit down, take a look at the menu selections, and point somewhat haphazardly at something in your excitement at the prospect of eating, you may get something you don't want because you aren't paying close enough attention to what you were asking the waiter for with the careless placement of your pointing finger.

Now you can refuse to eat what gets served to you because of your shoddy communication style, but it's likely that you'll have to do a lot of apologizing, explaining, and some careful reordering from the menu. At best, this results in a delay in getting what you really wanted. When you're hungry, that may hurt a bit, but at least if you are careful the next time, you will get what you really want in exchange for a little delayed gratification. At worst, you may have to end up paying for both orders--the one you didn't want as well as the one you did. In this case, I recommend you check to see if it's tax deductible under the category of a lesson well-learned. Seems like an education expense to me. If, however, you decide to settle for what has arrived because you are too hungry and shaky to wait until what you really want can be prepared for you, then at best you'll be disappointed with what you get. At worst, it could make you sick.

What am I choosing to do? I'm sending back the half-warmed fish and going back to the source to order what I really want, much more thoughtfully and with greater attention to detail this time, and with the awareness and intention that I am actually ordering something. It's amazing how quickly I manifested the first order, the half-formed wish. Although it wasn't quite right, it was probably as accurate as I had been in my wishing. Even if it takes a little while to prepare what I order the second time, because I'm much more specific, it's still better than settling for less than the best for my life.

Now for more on Rev. Spooner and his infamous "Spoonerisms:"

http://www.badpuns.com/jokes.php?section=spooner&name=spooners


http://www.fun-with-words.com/spoon_history.html

Beth Mitchum is the author of five novels, one collection of poetry, and one music CD. Her works are available at Amazon.com through the following link:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-url/ref=ntt_athr_dp_sr_1?_encoding=UTF8&search-type=ss&index=books&field-author=Beth%20Mitchum