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Thursday 30 October 2014

Oct 9th - In Someone Else's Chaos.

Falling into eternity

Sparkling dots
enveloped in a
billowing vacuum;
through the cool night air
I breath in
thousands of light years 
of this elegance
of something
more than I am.


They say that if you fear something enough you will bring it into your life. I have feared, all of my adult life, that I will be on the streets, homeless. And here I find myself. Worry being a prayer to the higher consciousness asking for what I do not want. I wonder how many others fear the same, how many people accept jobs they do not want, to avoid this fear? I do not know if I am a brave lightworker, struggling through unchartered darkness of the soul, or if I am simply disconnected from reality, irresponsible and as my father and brother love to label me ‘a failure’. I don’t feel like a failure, even now, travelling into London on the National Express to do a course in Hakomi, Applied Buddhism within the psychotherapeutic world. I am not sure where I will sleep tonight. I have a pretty sure possibility of staying in Welwyn Garden City, an hour outside of London, and a guy interested in mystism and Sufi has somehow popped up and offered me a place on couchsurf, but no address and no dates.

I feel like I am in a big game, where I need only trust. So simple, it is hard to believe. I remember countless occasions of travelling and never knowing where I would stay. It was a way of life. Something always turned out...I always found a play to stay, even when I was travelling on bike with 5 others in a place without hostels or hotels, and we ended up sleeping in an old folk’s home. I had asked for directions from two nice looking younger people on the street and the girl’s mother ran a residency that happened to have 3 double rooms free.

I want to believe that this is happening for a greater good. I feel often sick in my stomach, and breathe through it, and as I do I seem to be constantly transported back to being a child. I’m not sure if it’s because I’m in England now, and England is only the place where I grew up, or if I am working through limited belief systems created as a child. All I know is that I am being forced to break down my (Buddhist) ego, and though it hurts and I feel in a state of constant alert, it also feels as if I am breaking away from old patterns, letting past chains fall away like brushing dandruff away from my shoulders. The old, is simply the old. I’m sure I needed those limits, those defence systems, at the time, or I felt it to be true, but now, is just now. I am not the little girl who was bullied by her Dad, nor the older sister who was never enough for her brother, nor the daughter of a woman who really wanted a son. It is not relevant any longer. I am me.

The last two nights have been psychologically hard. I met a girl on the counselling course who invited me into her house, I liked her, she seemed the most ‘evolved’ on the course. I started to get a whiff of something not quite right when I couldn’t get into her car without stepping in rubbish that didn’t look too new. She talked incessantly, for hours and was very attentive to me drifting off and not listening...she would bring me in every time with a ‘Julia look....’ and a trick with the dog...she is shaking his hand now, she is kissing him now, look she says I can make him talk to me...etc etc. Trying so desperately to be friends. Trying too hard, so that I was exhausted. I didn’t feel I could have a minute to myself, and yet I needed to sort out accomodation in London, which just hasn’t materialise as yet. It was stressful, and probably well summed up by an email to John ‘Is it ok to kill the dog?’ It’s hard to keep stroking  an incessant dog that is giving me allergies. 

I recognise all this patter, recognise it in a past good friends, one of whom by weird coincidence contacted me that same day. I wonder why I keep attracting this chaotic female energy into my life? 

Last night the little one Pauline, had ballet. I know that because Edith had got Wednesday mixed up for Thursday and had thought it the night before...so ballet time comes, Pauline has been dressed for an hour...she has come in and told me at 3.30pm about her 5pm ballet...at five to, Edith is not moving. Pauline is dressed but not for walking, she’s got a little leotard on and Edith’s night dress, because Edith will not buy her ballet stuff until she goes every week. Pauline says ‘Are you ready mummy to take me in the car?’ 
‘Not in the car...we are walking...what are you doing dressed like that?’ It is the best that Pauline can do - there is fierce competition in the class to look good, Edith has already explained that to me. I had watched Pauline check herself various times over the last hour in the mirror. ‘We are walking!’
‘But mum it is five to! We are going to be late!’
‘Then I am not going to take you!’
‘Mummmmmmmm!’ Pauline holds back her, obvious habitual, frustration. I feel it as repressed rage.
‘No.’ Edith says waddling like a duck in power.
‘It’s your money, you have paid and it is a waste! Mummy please!’
‘Do not talk to me like that!!’
Etc etc. 

Eventually Pauline puts on some leggings and they walk there and must have got there late.
In the morning just before time to go to school, Edith decides to call her mother in Poland, because she is in a panic that she may be in hospital because she didn’t answer the phone a couple of days previously. I don’t understand why she waited, in this emergency, until now. The children get alarmed, try to talk to her while she is on the phone. Edith cannot hear anyone, everyone is shouting over each other. She puts down the phone and starts screaming at the children not to talk to her while she is on the phone, that it is rude, that it will make nobody happy...she does this, in her Polish accented English for a long time, going in cyclical mind troughs...meanwhile they are becoming later and later for school. The children are quiet. They’ve been here before.

I think about my fear of leaving the house...it’s not a fear of being out, and not of being in, but of leaving the house, of going through the front door. And I remember all of the stress that happened every single time. How we were always late for everything, how my mum would be in a constant stress about time, how she just had to wash up, to not return to a dirty house, how suddenly she had to attend to a cake that she had forgotten about, how she just had to do one more thing and she will be with us...and I thought that getting to somewhere meant going as fast as you could in a flap, watching the seconds on the clock and feeling that the red light was being totally unfair to us.

So, I wonder if this journey that my soul is taking is about trying to explain to me that the past is the past, that people are not perfect, that it is ok, that now is now, and that it is actually completely ok. Good enough.

I mean I totally respect Edith, she is bringing up two children, with an ex who is really not helping. No details here, but imagine the worse. And they are safe and clothed and fed and schooled, and they obviously love their mother unconditionally. She is doing far better than me right now. I can only just put someelse's roof over my own head, let alone two dependent children.

As Pete Robinson said 1. This is not heaven. 2. You are not god. 3. Try and not be an asshole.


I’m trying. It is not easy. I'm doing well just not to express it.



3 positives from the day

I watched a nice film called Julie and Julia and also I noticed at the beginning that one of the names on the screen was May Robinson...it is about two women struggling to make sense of their lives and become writers. Uplifting.

I have accommodation at last for tomorrow! I have been saved by a couch surfer who lives in Welwyn Garden City, and who is appanrently, according to others, a really great host. I will get to that Hakomi course!


I have been able to delete a comment which made me into a victim...I received a wonderful message from Prem Arpan who reminded me that life is just a game, not to be taken too seriously, and not to make myself into victim...and I have managed to do that...even when I'm tempted to say 'Ohh look at me victim.' I am not. This is a gift situation and as I stay calm within, it will heal all this that I manifested this situation with. Shed the old!!

Oct 8th - First Day of Homelessness

It feels good to be out of the toxicity of my brother's home. So good not to have to breathe it in and use all my energy to stay centered and at the same time I feel like I'm in a cloud of non-reality. How did all this happen and what is going to happen and will I be OK? Going with Trust.


To Magaret 

The pop song.

I sing with her
the girl who 
on the school pick up
looked alarmed
to see me, this stranger 
seat-belted beside her mother
the little girl
who got into the back seat
and refused to talk.
we sing on her sofa
her emotions
weaving sounds
felt so deeply
too grownup
for her to have lived them
and I sing her harmonies
sitting in a welling
of magic
feeling our roots
connecting
momentarily
as one.




three wonderful things today

1. I helped in a PhD study into mindfulness. Wow, wow, wow. We meditated together and then Willeke interviewed me, about any detail of the meditation...and then stuck with it, asking all sorts of questions about those five seconds when it happened. I have never looked at life so closely, didn't have the words actually for a lot of it, and suddenly I realised how I experience myself, how that mini experience actually had all the information of the whole...how MUCH info was there. We spoke about those 5 seconds for 45 minutes!!! It was really really mind opening. In short conclusion I realised that life can take so many forms that as a human being my mind cannot even start to conjure up, and so I can leave the idea of what is to become of me to a higher wisdom, and simply stay present in this present. Words, words, words, but how to convey those messages that come from within? Thank you so much Willeke for opening up a new world to me.

2. On the bus to Winchester, that went from outside Willeke's offices at the University (love it...couldn't have planned it so well) there was a beautiful rainbow.

3. Edith, my class mate in the counselling course, opened up her house to me.She has two daughters, the eldest (10 yrs old) refused to talk at first. I felt a little uncomfortable suddenly in an almost strangers house, and we stumbled around a little in awkwardness...then Edith gave me a glass of wine without offering (I like to say that I don't really drink) and half way through we relaxed. Another woman came around to collect her son, who didn't know either of us either, and we had a wonderful candlelit night talking about life, honest, funny, uplifting. Afterwards Edith and her eldest, Magaret, (who didn't want to talk at first) sang together and we did different dances and I taught them to do the upside down asana. It just felt really really magic.

Oct 7th - On Overload.

I go to a counselling course that I am deciding if I want to do. It is based on older fashioned ideas that the the past is the root of the problem, and goes there. I want to do present mindfulness. I want to do T-group, I want to be sensitive. We have to talk to another as if in a session. It is still very much introduction time, which is starting to drag, when one is used to T-groups, or Circling, or Contact Improv. It feels quite clunky, like using an old mobile phone. I tell my colleague, who I think it is the most sensitive of them all, that I am homeless and have nowhere to stay as of tomorrow. She instantly, bless her heart, invites me to her house. Phew. I've bridged this lilly pad. Later in the group psychology the two people who I don't consider to be very self aware, go into attack mode, and project like an automatic gun, at something I had shared last week (which two other people afterwards had applauded me for, thank god). I hold up. But reel. There is something I am doing wrong in this culture. I am being too honest. I am used to sensitive authentic communication that is not afraid of not always being super brilliantly positive, but excited to explore other possibilities of new self images of greater clarity. I am used to people knowing what projection is. I am used to people dealing with their own inner conflict more peacefully, wisely, delicately. I am tired of this shit.

Culture shock

Everywhere I go
walls of silence
shroud hurting hearts;
I sing my song 
through them, 
but my alegre
soon turns flat.
In parlour reverence,
I whisper now
soft words
that somehow
twist into thorns;
stunned into silence,
I sit exhausted
and become them.



Three blessings for today

1) A wonderful breakfast with Peter N W Robinson who told me some wonderful words that someone had recently told him
a. You are not god.
b. This is not heaven
c. Try and not be an asshole.
Great advise!!! Realised how much I wish for an idealised world...while actually I should be just accepting this one. Really great to talk to a sensitive friend and be recognised. Thanks Pete.


2) Phoned the meditation center and there is a possibility of doing a work exchange with them at the end of the month...which meant that my accommodation needs for tomorrow (argghhh) weren't quite met. I spoke with a guy who had said I could 'crash' at his, things had changed...feeling the dread of the black void, I went to the counseling course, where we had to draw how we feel. Art school paid off and I managed to express my hopes of all this shattering, shedding and falling away of the old and the pain healing into a personal blossoming and as I did, the person I partnered up with offered for me to stay in her house for two nights. Yeah!!! Thank you so much Edi. Thank you Universe.

3) Sat on the sofa with my nephew he found an excuse to scuttle across and to nonchalantly snuggle together. I love children, it was just what I needed. Thank you Joshua!

Oct 6th. Staying out of the house.

I awake. There is no one in the house. I can breathe. Thank god I have a coffee date with Walter.
I manage to stay out of the house all day.

The question relates to the root of the problem with my brother and sister in law. I asked the mother in law a question that was not meant to be asked. I had forgotten what English culture really means. 

Keep a straight face, stiff upper lip. None of that emotional delving. Please.


The question

I find a club in my hand
not a feather
I meant to prise open
soft and slow
to allow you to unfold,
not to smash you 
into this submission
violated
- red -
in sudden exposure.

Three wonders filling me with gratitude:
1. This morning I met with Walter W. Boyd Jr. who gave me a wonderful healing session in the middle of the coffee shop Costa. Yes! I learnt that all I am projecting onto the outside world, is of course, coming from within, and not finding a home is actually not feeling at home in my own body. Something that I can work on right now! Thank you Walter for being tribe, for resonating me back onto a firmer path.

2. I splashed out and gifted myself a lunch in a cafe.As the salad arrived John and Anne Kathryn Bruce called and I had lunch with them over skype! Afterwards the waitress came across and spoke to me like we were old friends, long enough for me to get a crick in my neck!!! We had a right good chin wag about living out of the system and gardening and going slow and working less, and I suddenly realised that I really am not alone.

3. It was really nice to go to chanting and meet new people, to connect to good inside to empty space, to trance out a little...and to be in my body without all that monkey mind...and when I got home, I found a message on facebook from a new friend who has hopefully solved my housing problem!!! Wonderful! I think that I can go and live in a meditation center!!!!! I am so happy. I'm feeling so good about staying open during particularly difficult times. THANK YOU UNIVERSE!!!!

From Walter
I awoke this morning and I was asked to pass this to you, its an image I received from my healing transmission last week."I give myself full permission to be true, safe and comfortable with myself and within myself."



Oct 5th. Becoming alone again.

Dealing with being thrown out of my brother's home. I return, after being away with John, to my parents like flies at the front door. I wonder if they breathe? It's not good. My brother continues to refuse to even look at me. Speaking is out of the question it seems. It makes me feel like I am a devil risen from the depths to reek havoc. I also try not to breathe. It's infectious. Later I am sent an email giving me two days to find somewhere to live. So many friends around the world but here I don't know anyone.I'm on my own. Advanced course on trust.


I see in the other
an angry mirror
and stay breathless still
vulnerable in terror,
childhood trauma
rippling distortion
contorting images
into monsters.
No longer expecting 
childhood demands
to be the fairest of them all
I find the courage
to recognise myself
and from the depths
of my childhood heart
manage to forgive.

3 good things today


1.After tears in the underground as my love left to return to the states, I came out and managed to remember mindfulness and looked to the blue skies and found inner calm knowing that the love between me and John is deep and nourishing even if we never see each other again. Instead of crying I managed to shift myself into gratitude for the delicate and intricate growth we have both helped each other through. 

2. Walking down the street I asked the Universe for signs of how to manage logistics for next weekend's Hakomi course in London. I walked into a restaurant and asked a woman with beautiful eyes, to fill my water container. She was of my tribe. She asked me if I wanted ice and gave me lemon too. I asked her about cheap accommodation and she offered space for me to sleep on her sofa! 

3. I found a wonderful cafe full of artistic creative people and sat outside on a cobbled street in Camden without any sounds from machines...bliss!...I overheard my coffee neighbours talking about a documentary that they are doing and a conversation ensued. I had decided to try and sell three poetry books, and I mentioned my challenge and they bought one! After a rather income stagnant extended period, I feel as if I am entering into the flow of sustainable abundance.

Oct 4th - Shocked into Deeper Sensitivity



Deeper into sensitivity

I fall into the stream of life
Torrents force off
All that is not supple
Brittle screams
Screech from my
Putrid stomach
Drowning with the old.

I endure the pain
Of flayed skin
Ripping through my psyche
Only because
I have no choice.

After the storm
Raw naked skin
Gleams
As I birth into
The new unknown.


I had planned to start the three positives on my birthday a few weeks earlier. All was going well then. I had just returned from the states having loved and been loved. I returned to my homeland. It wasn't easy. Culture shock is not easy in foreign places,but within the place I have been calling my country for 15 years while living abroad, it affects my self identity. Am I English? Who am I? What am I? And why won't this debit card go in that slot? 'Face down madam.'


Meanwhile, my alien presence is affecting where I have been invited to live: my brother's. He and his wife, coming out of several difficult years, find that they cannot cope with another in their house, and in panic, decide silence over overt aggression and give me three days to find a place to live, by email. I am thrown out. Guilty without trial. It is hard to stay quiet. But I do. John my companion through life at present, explains a Buddhist therapist once asked him 'Life is not fair. What problem to do you have with that?'


I become homeless for the first time. Really homeless. Like I don't know where I'm going to sleep each night. I have no friends or community to call on. I have reduced my suitcase to the minimum. Nothing of value, just in case. In case of what? I dare not let my mind go there.


Meanwhile I have started a project to send out gratitude to the world. And it is saving me. My mind wanders around positives, sniffing, savouring, recognising. They are sparks of light in this dark night, through stomach clenching fears, through this passage of life.


Welcome home.


Don't worry England, you're guarded.





Wednesday 29 October 2014

Oct 3rd Avesbury

Avebury

We stand in a circle of stones
Nothing known of them
Lost to the past
Nothing known of us
Unformed future
Bridged only in imagination

Happy Birthday to me! A new thread into the social sculpture: 3 gratitudes per day.

Oct 2nd 2014



Happy birthday to me

With the stars
in the firmament
my birthdays
come and go;
today a blip on
the horizon of time
but the sing song
we all know so well
delves deep within
to the eternity
of same moments
silk ribbons
of memories past
connecting me
to the magic
of this creation
ever birthing.


1. A really soft gentle day...thank you to John Caron for his gentleness and being able to share sensitive delight of sunlight shining through the budding leaves of the new forest and within ourselves, for adventure of wrong turns that are right turns in the end and birthday suit beauty. 

2 Deep thanks to Adrian Robinson, Debs Robinson and Ruth Robinson and Brian Robinson, for all your gifts, balloon ride, bracelet and kind words of deep love in your card, the GPS that helped us make less mistakes on the road, the cake and more than anything else all of your presence at the birthday table. I love you all. 

3 Gratitude for being showered in love by friends from all over...

Tuesday 28 October 2014

Staying alive



So, mission completed. I have a room. I am not really happy to hear traffic at 6am in the morning, and I promised myself I would not stop until I found a place I am happy in...but suddenly the issue is not of the same urgency as yesterday that I find a place to sleep that is not on the streets. I am one step up. 

I’ve realised that by this constant search for a safe place, I am able to avoid all other responsibilities of life. By continually placing myself in positions of having to cover such base needs, I do not have time or energy to place my energy into projects that are of a higher nature that are more than just a safe place to sleep and eat. I am not able to consider what I am here on this planet for.

In Nepal I realised that people were generally as happy as people in the west who had so much more: their own bed to sleep in, electric cookers, and non alcoholic husbands. It seemed as if they were happy to have simply survived yet another day against the wilds of life. Their challenges, though difficult, were achievable most days: food, shelter, raising children. I have reduced myself to this level of living where staying alive each day seems to be my only purpose thankful to not have anyone dependent on me, but reeling in the lonliness. 

Now I have covered myself, for a couple of months. A month of deposit and a month of rent paid. Suddenly I feel empty. I am sat in the vulnerability of an empty mirror. What to do? Who to be?