Moongazy

I heard an interesting quote today: ‘those who believe - don’t know’.  It is the sort of thing that the Guardian is fond of saying, but in the context that I heard it, it made more sense than I had really understood before.

‘I believe’ is something we use to talk about things that we have been told, but often not experienced.  In that context we ‘don’t know’.  Knowing comes from experiencing.  It can be an action or an insight but it is something that is true for us and not just what we have been told.

It is probably obvious to the readers out there who follow our dear Guardians thoughts, but in the past I feel I just ‘believed’ a lot of stuff, although probably on a deep level, but now I feel I know and now trust what I have actually felt and experienced on my journey and it is comforting.

The morning meditation is still happening!  If I have to be out early it is very shortened, but it was only missed twice in the last four weeks, so I am feeling pleased with myself.  My next journey is to start a deeper exploration of ‘The Sacred Feminine’ and getting more in touch with the ‘Wild Woman’  within.  These are areas of my psyche that I have worked on in the past, but not enough!  They have been creeping into my thoughts at odd times recently, pulling at me and I think it is time to devote some real energy to them.  There is a workshop coming up on one aspect, which I hope will be interesting, but there is also much to enjoy in the ‘wild woman’ exploration as she loves fun, love, nature, instincts and doing those little things that make you happy, like walking by the sea and hugs.

There is a ‘wild one’ hiding in all of us, our deepest most primeval selves, that long to be acknowledged and nutured.  In our busy lives we can forget them and not allow them their fun and love so they shrivel up and we lose this natural part of ourselves.  Make this the day you say hello to them again, do something silly, but fun and don’t care who is looking. Your wild one will thank you and reward you by making you feel great!  Try it, the practice may grow on you and the world will be a happier place for the fun you bring to it.

Life has been busy since my last post.  I had a wonderful retreat up a mountain in Switzerland.  We lived in a tent, no ground sheet and no hot water for a week!  I didn’t expect it to be more than a restful holiday, but I learnt a great deal more about meditation techniques and other exercises which I hope will help me in the future. 

Since returning, I have tried to get up earlier and meditate to a cd from the week.  I needed more discipline in my life and hopefully the new regime will last.  It started as 6 am, but that was very hard!  Now it is nearer 7am and I am not asleep by 3 in the afternoon any more.  Experience has taught me the hard way that pushing myself too hard only results in my body reacting by catching flu or some other breakdown, so I am kind to myself these days.  I also felt much better after a week of vegetarian food so I am making more of an effort in that area of my life as well.

There are always good intentions after a course or a retreat.  They last a while and most times we slip back into old ways.  I think that we always move forward with the things that we learn, and, even if we slide back, hopefully it is never all the way and some things stay with us, to be built on in the future.  I shall let you know how long this particular regime lasts!

Foelf.
From within, I couldn’t decide what to do.
Unable to see, I heard my name being called.
Then I walked outside.

The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.
Don’t go back to sleep.
You must ask for what you really want.
Don’t go back to sleep.
People are going back and forth
across the doorsill where the two worlds touch.
The door is round and open.
Don’t go back to sleep.

For years, copying other people, I tried to know myself.
From within, I couldn’t decide what to do.
Unable to see, I heard my name being called.
Then I walked outside.

The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.
Don’t go back to sleep.

You must ask for what you really want.
Don’t go back to sleep.

People are going back and forth across the doorsill
where the two worlds touch.
The door is round and open.
Don’t go back to sleep.

— Mevlana Celaleddin Rumi -
Sufi poet and mystic

Yesterday was the most horrible day I have had for a long time!  ‘Hell is other people’ said Satre, sometimes those other people create the hell around you while not really trying.

It started off as a fairly normal day.  I woke up feeling fuzzy, but got on with the usual bits and pieces and arranged various times to see the people I had to meet during the day.  Caught up with emails and phone calls and went out feeling upbeat.

The first meeting was mildly irritating!  Taking oldies shopping and being patient.  Not my best trait, but I tried and it went fairly well, but the car was stuffy and all the chatter left me with a headache.

I knew I had an afternoon of waiting around.  Two pills and a good mocha, courtesy of the Guardian, improved my mood a little, though my mind was busy trying to work out my next move in life.  We discussed my options and I felt depressed at my lack of progress at the moment.  This is a usual stage after finishing a project, but things didn’t seem to be getting anywhere.

Then I had a phone call from my daughter.  She was in tears after fainting and hitting her nose on the floor.  She is in London, not close for mum to rush to her aid, so I tried to calm her and give advice over the phone.  This left me feeling very shaken.  I phoned her a while later and she had stopped her nose bleeding and was a bit calmer.  I was still shaking!

We went home later than expected and picked up our son on the way (he had been drinking).  While cooking  the meal, he was being annoying and I turned and made a comment about something that had happened to him a week ago because of his drinking.  He exploded in a rage.  Thankfully, he still has self-control, but it was like standing next to a bomb going off and, while there isn’t physical violence, the emotional impact can be felt in a physical way.

He left soon after, but I felt terrible for the rest of the evening.  When I finally got to bed, sleep was a long time coming as my brain was still trying to work my life out.

Thankfully, this morning I woke up feeling ok, despite lack of sleep.  My daughter is feeling much better, though looks as if she has been in a fight.  I read some of an old journal that I keep at odd times in my life and was heartened to see that I have made a lot of progress over the years. 

But the main problem has been there a long time, as the journal reveals.  It is not for me to solve, only how to handle my reaction to it.  Perhaps that is my life’s main lesson; but it is a very hard one.  Watching someone destroy themselves and others is painful.  You want to make it better, but you are powerless to do so.  Sometimes you wonder if you are to blame - that one took a long time to resolve.  In the end you can only watch and possibly pray, that things will get better, knowing that they probably won’t, despite all the help over the years.

The fallout from yesterday will probably keep going for a while, but I have a week away to look forward to and that will keep my mind off things.  So I will close and start packing!

I spent a while this morning writing a new post and then managed to delete it by accident.  Not the best thing I have done for a while.

It was a little saga on the benefit of hugs in our lives.  Have one, preferably more, every day.  Good for the soul, good for your health, good for your life!  Especially hug those you love and those who have lost loved ones, they need it the most.

I am sitting in the elevated position that is The Guardian’s; presiding over his dream as he is busy elsewhere.  It is a very priviledged position to be in and in some ways, terrifying.  Betsy and I have made friends and I have finally mastered the art of frothy milk - at least until I try it again anyway.

It is quiet, with an atmosphere of peace.  The Dervish is reading in the corner, drinking the perfect cappuchino, made by my good self.  There is another lady here to keep me company and help with any problems.  Together we hope to keep the place as the Guardian expects it to be run.

I also said more about me this morning.  I am practising turning into a batty old woman who talks to herself and to her cats and occasionally to the Dervish.  We have been married a very long time (due to lots of hugs) and sometimes we have very long, interesting discussions.  Mostly though, talk is on the little things in life, the family, the shopping, the boring things that have to be done.  But, then, that’s being married.  Rubbing along together, being content and compromising over the difficult decisions.  It is also rejoicing in the good things;  Celebrating, comiserating and supporting when needed.  Putting up with the in-laws and despairing over the children.  Passion, love, tears and joy and of course, lots of hugs!

I didn’t realise that it had been so long since my last post.  Have I been to busy or have I had nothing interesting to say!  Probably a little of both.  My life has been full of Reiki treatments and healing sessions, writing case studies and trying to keep on top of the normal things in life like housework and cats.  I try in all this to keep my spiritual life as an active part of everything I do and while I have been giving treatments, this has been easy. 

I find that connecting with another human being during a healing session is a deeply spiritual experience.  It is difficult to explain unless you have tried it.  You are not doing the healing, you open yourself as a channel and connect to the ‘healing energies’ available to all.  Some call it ‘God’, some ‘ Great Spirit’, some find it easy to join with guides or angels, some use all those methods.  Most healers work with the intention of bringing love and healing into the life of the individual they are working on, however it is needed.

Everyone has the capacity to be a healer and we all do it automatically all our lives.  The hand placed on a shoulder of someone in distress, the mum who ‘kisses it better’, the person who gives time to really listen to a problem without judgement or advice.  Every time we connect with another person with compassion and empathy, we heal.

We often feel embarrassed about making this connection, will we be rejected, or misunderstood, but often the effort is appreciated on levels we never realise.  At a deep level, we are all connected.  In the Native American tradition, by the web of life, in a scientific way by electrical energy that is present in all of creation.  Our emotions can effect our own cells and produce a reaction in ways that have been medically proved.  For instance, the person who lives on stress  and high emotion is often a heart attack or stroke waiting to happen.  If the way we think and feel can produce something so large that can be seen, how much does it influence us on small, internal levels where we cannot see the result.  We talk in terms of emotions: a broken heart, gut feelings.  Expressions for physical manifestations, influenced by our thoughts.

This is a massive subject.  We are what we think and feel as well as what we put into our bodies.  It may not be something that the drug companies would like us to know, as there is no profit if we start looking after our own health, but it should be the subject of more mainstream research.

I started by talking about healing.  It is not about miracle cures, though they can happen.  It is more about enabling the person’s own body to start its own healing process in whatever way it feels necessary.  I am looking forward to continuing with healing work, wherever It is needed and, hopefully, not having to write to many case studies any more!

Talking to the Guardian yesterday about the mystical experiences that some people have, I came to the conclusion that they are great, but not essential to living an authentic life.  To me, living life from the heart and trying to be as genuine as possible is more important than just practising hard to acheive a ’state’.  It doesn’t mean that there is no point in meditating or doing practices to enhance yourself and your own experiences, just that your reasons for doing these things should be defined.

That then made me think of my own path.  This has been varied and I have learnt from many people and practices along the way, some useful, some enlightening and others downright dangerous!  I am happy with who I have become from all this experience , but sometimes I wonder if the journey would have been easier and possibly more successful, if I had found a teacher many years ago and followed one particular ‘truth’.

I have friends who have done this and they are wonderful people, well rounded, good at what they do and an insperation to others.  There have been times when I have worked with someone who has taught me a great deal and I learn every day from the people I meet, but I never feel right aligning myself to one set of rules or doctrines.  It is odd, because I love ceremony, bells and smells, and I believe that mantras and prayers that have been repeated over hundreds of years retain a magic and symbolism that gives them great power.  But .. I do not like being told what to do.

For me, the teachings should resonate from within and not be absorbed from outside.  I know we gravitate to those things which seem to blend with our own feelings and thoughts and can dismiss those that we don’t agree with, but, in the end, where does our own real truth come from except from that inner knowing.  We try various things throughout our lives and if we care and think about the life that we want to lead and the people we want to become I am sure that the stuff that is right for us will stay.

Someone told me once that I was giving my power away, bit by bit.  It was a small remark, but it made me think very hard.  I realised that I was trying progress in a way that I thought was good because it worked for a lot of other people.  I thought the reason it wasn’t working so well for me was because I didn’t try hard enough, even though I wasn’t totally comfortable with the whole thing.  I started to do more of what I did feel totally in tune with and changed my whole life.  I didn’t feel guilty about ‘not doing it right’ any more.

Hence my title ‘Call No Man Master’.  It is a book ‘in praise of teachers but wary of gurus’ about the life of a woman who studied under many of the great philosophers of the past century like Gurdjieff, Ouspensky, Pak Subuh and the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.  In the end she felt that her own efforts worked the best for her spiritual development.  It is often the person sitting next to you on the bus who can teach you more from their example than any self proclaimed guru.  They are often more interesting and always a lot less expensive.

Last night I sat in the garden and watched the full moon dancing in and out of the clouds.  It always fascinates me.  There seems to be magic that you can almost touch, out there in the shadows.

It made me think of all the people who have done the same; sat and watched and wondered, all over the world and for thousands of years.  We are all searching for some magic and wonder in our lives, maybe it is as simple to find as spending a few minutes looking at the natural beauty in the world around us and being amazed.

Hi! This is my first time on a blog, after making comments on many others.  Maybe it is time to put my own thoughts on the world into the public domain.  Thank you to the Guardian for making this possible. 

I have been interested in the words of the Guardian, they are thoughtful, abrasive, incisive and deeply felt and they have made me think more carefully about what I really believe and the face that I show to the world.  Is it really what I am or just another illusion among the many masks that we put on in our lives?

My masks have been varied, daughter, wife, mother, friend and many others. I have in the past felt the gap between those titles and the ‘real’ me.  As I have become more aware of the split, I have tried harder to make the person I show to the whole world more authentic.  Has it worked or is it just another mask?  Perhaps writing my thoughts will help clear some of the illusions.

A quote from a recent Big issue edited by Jamie Catto and Duncan Bridgman www.1giantleap.tv says

‘If we dare to show ourselves in all our raw glory, and really express what is going on in the chaos and the shadows, then we have a chance to connect to something real in our audience.  Because when I talk about me, you’ll hear about you.

We need to collectively admit that we are not fine.  We’re not confident and balanced and good. …..We waste so much energy keeping up this mutual pretence for for each other because  we think if people saw the truth, …   all the crazy truth of our dark appetites and self loathing, then we’d get rejected.

But in fact, the opposite is true.  It’s when we dare to reveal the truth that we unwittingly give everyone else permission to do the same.  To stop holding their breath for a moment and to be here, present, vulnerable and authentic.’

I hope to be able to reveal my own truth, to be here, present, vulnerable and authentic.