Rubble Club Archives

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.

Hello! Greetings one and all, this is Madge Dumpling once again, welcoming all you lovely, dedicated pet rock fanciers (and your little pets) to another fabulous get-together of the world-famous Rubble Club of Undergrowby. I am a little late joining you this week, but I see you have already made inroads into the chilly winter buffet and even the dried-up crunchy left-overs from last week have gone.Perhaps a coach trip has come and gone before I even arrived. Ah, I see a letter has been left on the table. That may be a clue! I have opened it and found a pretty card with a picture of violas on it, and news from my newest prefect, Linda all the way from Scotland.
I was right about Linda. She is turning out to be highly intelligent, motivated and dutiful to the cause. The paper card(the first paper card I have ever had from a Rubble Clubber) is addressed to me c/o Granny Gray at the Magic Wand Factory Shop on Dickson Road, Blackpool, but Linda must have changed her mind about posting it, and sensibly organised a coach trip of lovely Scottish Rubble Clubbers and delivered it by hand instead. Well decided, Linda! I’m sorry to have missed you. That nosey, gossip, Granny Gray, my shopkeeper, knows too much about my business already. Your top tip idea for umbrella-holding pet rock beds made from pretty tea light holders filled with coloured sand would be all over town by now, and Granny Gray would be taking personal credit for it. It’s best to keep our ideas between ourselves here in the Rubble Club, then we know what’s what.
I expect there are plenty of tea light holders, sand and cocktail umbrellas knocking about in the hotels along the promenade. I shall be having a walk tomorrow to cadge a few from my many kind, sympathetic hotelier friends, who have contributed so much in the past to me and the little rockies. In the friendly, open-hearted, welcoming spirit of Blackpool’s own, those who love me have installed little gnome flaps in their back doors so I can come and go as I like. If they are not in, I just help myself to their bits and bobs and leave a few orphans behind when I go, (if I remember).
Now, a special notice to Joe and Emma, who came into the shop this week to adopt some little orphans. It comes to my attention that Granny Gray, my day-dreaming shopkeeper, forgot to issue you with umbrellas for your pet rocks, even though I distinctly heard you ask her if they liked the wet or not. I stamped on her foot from my listening post under the counter, but she willfully ignored me.Therefore, Joe and Emma, or Joe and Emma’s mum, next time you are on Dickson Road, please pop in and demand your umbrellas. It gives a pet rock that added sense of security to have their umbrella up above their heads, even if they are indoors. They hate the rain, as you all know.
And so, on to the next episode of the magical Dumpling breathing technique.Having found your inner Dumpling, (see previous few weeks’ Meetings ) and learned to control its movement within the inner cauldron, it is time for me to let you into a secret. Every night when you lie down and go to sleep, your breathing pattern changes to a different rhythm, sometimes quiet, sometimes noisy. This rhythm, when noisy, is called the Snoring Dumpling Rhythm, (or Snoring, for short). It is a perfectly natural phenomenon during which your Dumpling travels along secret, invisible pathways within you and makes its way into the dithering, magical invisible space just above your head, which is where the full-sized visible you becomes the tiny invisible you. Once you are invisible and tiny you can go wherever you wish and visit anywhere you like on earth or in heaven. You will not remember where you chose to go, because of course you are asleep at the time, but for those who practice the Dumpling breathing technique, it is sometimes possible to breathe yourself there when you are awake and learn a great deal about the invisible world around you. It is useful for inquisitive types like myself, who like to know what’s going on everywhere. Next week, I will help you guide your Dumpling upwards, out of the cauldron, through the gateway of the invisible world, and back home again.
I regret there is not time today, because I came too late to the meeting, but I will give you a little hint, to put you on. Sit up straight on the edge of your chair, locate your inner Dumpling and invite your Dumpling to be thinking about the shimmering invisible space just above your head, and let it know that you know what it is up to every night when you go to sleep. Give it a few days to consider inviting you to accompany it up there next week. It will probably be relieved its game is up, and be planning a nice jolly seasonal destination for you to visit by the time the next meeting arrives. It will be its (and my) lovely invisible Christmas present to you. Till then, I remain your faithful freind and dutiful chairman, Madge Dumpling .

Hello Rubble Clubbers and your little pets, and welcome to another winter get-together here at the Stone Quarry in the hidden land of Undergrowby, just below ground in the heavenly happy holiday-land of Blackpool. The week-end Blackpool sun has forced itself through the wintry clouds once again for the benefit of all those lucky week-end holiday-makers, so you can put your pet rocks on the window sill sand-pit for a little sun-bathe while we get down to business.
First, a message to my nice new prefect, Linda. Linda, you asked me if my breathing exercises would help fight the flab. Now Linda, I want you to listen carefully. The Dumpling breathing technique is not a beautifying, tummy-firming exercise. It is a secret internal magical practice designed to empower the Dumpling within. Having said that, pet rocks have been practising the technique for centuries and their little tummies are as hard as a rock, so what can’t speak can’t lie, Linda. Keep going, and you’ll find out. My own little tummy is not so little, in case you were wondering, but it is always extremely rock hard. I had, however, put that down to my fabulously wholesome diet of rock cakes and gravel tea.
You also said you are not wearing your prefect’s badge to work. I expect you don’t want to make all your coleagues jealous of your new promotion, and I don’t blame you. People can be so cruel when they are jealous, but Linda, I think you are worrying for nothing. You are forgetting you live in Scotland and I for one have never heard of a cruel Scot. They are all so smiley and good and would make wonderful pet rock owners, every one of them. I am sure they would all, far from being spiteful and jealous, be congratulating you and organising a celebration party for you, because we all know how they love an excuse for a nice party over there in Scotland. If you are any good at making rock cakes and gravel tea, it could be a pet rock party. Get that prefect’s badge on Linda, round up a few kind-hearted friends and start taking orders for more pet rocks immediately, ready for your next trip to Blackpool. Hundreds of half-Scottish orphan pet rocks are secretly depending on you.
And now on to the next step in the Dumpling breathing technique.
You have mastered Finding the Cauldron, Filling the Cauldron, Finding the Dumpling, Lighting the Cauldron and moving the Dumpling up and down, and now you will learn the next step,
MOVING THE DUMPLING FORWARD AND BACK.
First locate the Dumpling by slightly tensing the tummy muscles and seat muscles, and by flicking the muscles up or down, guide the Dumpling to the mid-line. Now, the next time you breathe in, instead of letting the tummy swell out, pull it in to resist the swell and feel your back and sides opening up with the breath. As you breathe out, give your tummy muscles an extra pull inwards to kick the Dumpling towards your spine, and hump your back a little to accommodate it. Then, quickly relax your tumy muscles, breathe in and arch your back again to flick the Dumpling away from the spine forwards towards the stomach wall. With the next few breaths, repeat the forward-and-back spinal tilting and muscle clenching, forwards and back, forwards and back, then reduce the physical action to a much more subtle, mental level, so it is your mind that is moving the Dumpling, and the muscle-clenching, spinal tilting and breath movements are barely there at all.
You will get good at this in no time, and surprise yourself at how powerfully your mind can control that Dumpling.
Using your newly-found subtle powers, using the mind, breath and the minimum of muscle-action, experiment with moving the Dumpling forward, back, up and down and round and round the cauldron at will. It will be happy to work for you, delighted to finally get your attention and eager to show you how limitless are its talents. Once you get to know it you will realise what it is…it is the true, immortal you, the Dumpling within. Mine is me, the true, immortal Madge Dumpling. Yours is, ….what? If you are not called Dumpling, perhaps this would be a good time to add it to the end of your name by deed poll.
Next time we will be taking our activated Dumplings for a controlled trip outside of the cauldron, through the hidden pathways of our mind and body, in the same way that we Growbies travel along our own hidden tunnels here, just below the surface of Blackpool. We never know where we’ll pop up next, but pop up we will, you can depend upon it, Rubble Clubbers. As it is such a lovely day, I have itchy feet. I am going to leave you all here together mingling and practicing with your Dunplings and I’m off for a trot along the “cliff” paths just below the Promenade. I have a good feeling about what might be in store for me today, so until next week, keep practicing, Rubble Clubbers, and remember I am always your true friend and dutiful chairman, Madge Dumpling.

A good sunshiny wintry morning to you all! This is Madge Dumpling, Quarrymistress and chairman of the world-famous Rubble Club, whose doors are flung open to you once again here in the Stone Quarry of the magical world of Undergrowby. No, don’t take your coats off. Help yourselves to extra blankets for you and fluffy nests for your little rockies. I have lit some candles in the hearth to take off the chill, but it’s still freezing. The rock cakes are covered in frost and there is ice in the gravel tea so you will need to warm them in your hands for a while. Snuggle up together on the sofas and get warm while I do the anouncements.
I am pleased to announce that the Rubble Club has another prefect, thanks to the good judgement of Granny Gray, my shopkeeper at the Magic Wand Factory Shop in Dickson Road, Blackpool. In summer you will remember my love affair with all things Scottish, and my expeditions hidden in the luggage compartments of various Scottish linedancers’ coaches. Well, during one of my overnight coach trips to Scotland, I brought back some Scottish rock samples which, thanks to my Dumpling magic, have bred and over time have produced many kind, good tempered pets. It seems however, that the originals were missed by the Scots, who searched the internet to find them. By chance, and good detective work, one rock-seeker happened to stumble through cyber-space over my threshold and suspected I might be the guilty thief, but it is too late, the breeding line is established. Scotland and Blackpool are united in stone for ever.
Some of the offspring have now been returned to Scotland by their new owner and befriender, Linda from Kilmarnoch, who came down to Blackpool on a coach trip herself, and made a special pilgrimage to Dickson Road to root about on my pet rock shelves looking for those pet rocks with tell-tale signs of Scottish lineage(extreme smileyness). Touched by her dedication to pet rocks, and to buy her silence, Granny Gray made her a Rubble Club prefect on the spot. It was lucky I had given her a spare prefect’s badge for such emergencies.
To be honest, I think I had a bit of a Dumpling premonition about it during my advanced breathing exercises. (And by the way, if Linedancer, my head prefect, is panicking under the weight of an ever-growing responsibility for all the prefects under her care, there is no need. The Rubble Club and all its departments, even yours, Linedancer, however big or small they are, will run themselves quite effortlessly, by their ever-present heart-centred Dumpling magic.)
And so, on with this week’s breathing exercises, “Warming the cauldron”and “Empowering the Dumpling”. It will take your minds (and those of your pet rocks) off the winter weather and bring out ever more of the undiscovered Dumpling within.
If you were present at the Rubble Club last week and the week before, you will have already opened your belly, filled the cauldron and found the dumpling. Thanks to the winter, the soup in the cauldron may be feeling a little cold, so this is a helpful hint to turn up the heat. First, close the left nostril with your fingertip, so the air is drawn down into the cauldron through the nostril of fire(the right nostril), filling the cauldron with your favourite form of imaginary warm nourishment(probably my world-famous warmed-up gravel soup). As you breathe out, with each out- breath, vigorously pull up your seat muscles and pull in your lower tummy muscles, as if igniting a pilot light in the space below the cauldron. Continue the pulling up pumping motion for few breaths, as if you were pumping up the bellows below the fire.
Now rest and breathe quietly, listening and observing the swirling, bubbling action of the soup and the dumpling within it. If the pilot light has refused to light, try again, this time pulling up only the right hand side of the seat muscles, and the right hand side of the bottom, which corresponds to the right kidney(the seat of fire power within). That should do it. If it still won’t light, your muscles must be a bit withered and your cauldron may have sprung a leak. Keep practising the squeezing, pumping and resting and everything will return to the place where it belongs. Your obviously distressed Dumpling will thank you in the long run, and as it recovers any winter health problems will disappear.
Empowering the Dumpling.
Once the soup in your cauldron is warm and bubbling locate the precious Dumpling within and observe its subtle movements. The next exercise is about helping the Dumpling to move in a set direction by the power of mind and breath combined. First, we will concentrate on moving it up and down….up with the in-breath and down with the out-breath,( which is its very nature and if you are in good health, this will be happening anyway).
Dumpling up.
As you breathe in, the soup splashes down onto the floor of the cauldron, naturally stirring the dumpling up to the middle of the belly. If it sticks to the floor of the cauldron, flick up your seat muscles and kick it up into the air on the out-breath. Holding the breath in after the next in-breath, check if the dumpling is around the mid-line by squeezing in your tummy muscles. You should feel a little dumpling-shaped knot of resistance if you have been successful. If not keep practicing. Dumpling down.
As you breathe out, visualise the Dumpling slowly sinking like a pet rock to the floor of your belly. If you are a sensitive type, you can even feel it bouncing to the bottom in a subtle, invisible kind of way. If you feel nothing, and fear the Dumpling is stuck at the top, you need to take more physical control. With the next out-breath, squeeze your chest walls in and your diaphragm down, and hold the breath out for longer. To check if the Dumpling has descended, just flick up your seat muscles for a moment and the Dumpling will make its presence felt by its subtle resistance. If you can’t feel it, be patient, like a pet rock and practice, practice, practice. Think of it as a form of winter sport which has only one winner…you! One day I will be looking for an apprentice to inherit the Dumpling Magic and only those who prove themselves be dedicated dumpling breathers will be considered. Till next week, keep your cauldrons boiling and practice moving your Dumpling up and down and the time will fly. In future weeks, you can scarcely imagine where our Dumplings will end up!
Until then I remain your faithful friend and kindly informative chairman, Madge Dumpling.