Mary Oliver

While I was writing the last blog, I wanted to add this poem.  My brain worked as usual and forgot.   So here it is.  It is called The Journey, and it is by my favourite poetress Mary Oliver who hardly ever writes about people and is possibly the poet who writes the most about being human.

The Journey

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice--
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do--
determined to save
the only life you could save.

Walking Naked

Not really what my friend meant by walk naked, but you know... it´s like truths on different levels.

“Learn to walk naked in life” said a little old man who I suddenly found myself talking to after somehow finding myself in a choir concert in the University Cloister. I had followed my nose with the lingering notes. He was not a dirty old man…it was all in context. To be honest I had egged him on by letting loose and telling him about my views for 2012 and the cosmic morning. He was really interested, I could tell cos he kept twitching his left eye.

I declared as if I were some insider, the imminent collapse of the church, and all external authority structures and then he said his line. Afterwards as we were walking like old friends down the impressive sweeping stone steps of the University posh bit, he said quietly, looking around to make sure that nobody could hear such indecency, that he had been a priest. He had been used to being on the opposite side of the confessional box…he left because it had become too difficult, he said, to hear confessions of “sins” that he did not consider sins, such as being gay, of enjoying sex, of non catholic ideas, developing unique ideas, etc.

We had made friends because in the middle of one of the choir pieces my telephone decided to join in. God damn! They are hard buggers to shut up surrounded by so much public, big clumsy hands groping around in a cosmic black hole that is normally my bag. He smiled encouragement and at the end of the piece, my face fading from burning scarlet, he explained the poem that had been sung, had been written by Antonio Machado. The verses are from "Proverbios y Cantares" in Campos de Castilla.

Caminante, son tus huellas     Wanderer, your footsteps are
el camino y nada más;           the road and nothing more;
Caminante, no hay camino,   Wanderer, there is no path,
se hace camino al andar.       The path is made by walking.
Al andar se hace el camino,  By walking one makes the path
y al volver la vista atrás        and turning to look back
se ve la senda que nunca      a path is seen that never
se ha de volver a pisar.        one should re-tread.
Caminante no hay camino    Wanderer, there is no path,
sino estelas en la mar.          Only wakes upon the sea.

I am sure that most of you will have heard me rumbling on about the theory where I suddenly become an expert on astrology because I know two things…and they are:  Every 2150 years the earth comes under the influence of a new sign…and that soonish a new one is coming.

Around 4000 years ago as Aries (the Ram) came in, coincidentally (some would say coincidences don´t exist) Moses came into our history. He was said to have horns coming out of his head, and now to honour Moses, Jews blow a ram´s horn. The shofar was used to bring down the walls of Jericho and may symbolise the waking of the soul (once we have broken down our inner walls) and to repent (I guess from our instinctual behaviour). Don´t take my word for it, I am being imaginative. This is my made up theory, keep your right to make up your own!

Then 2000 years ago, when our time system began, Taurus moved into Pisces, and Jesus also coincidentally appeared in the lime light, represented also by two fish flowing in different directions. Which to resume super fast (from my vast no-ledge) represents the first fish swimming in a smooth path and the second in a problematic path, of which we are coming to the end…(and helps explain things like our consummate interest in absolute trash, the present state of the world etc).

With my breadth of knowledge of astrology I can say with the minimum of authority that Pisces, the fish, the Age of Jesus, is an age of external Authority…when we need-needed external direction to understand who we are, where we are going, what we are. We needed and had priests to tell us what to believe, doctors to tell us how to communicate with our bodies, schools to tell us what to learn, legal systems to tell us what is fair, politicians to tell us…whatever it was they used to do…we were not ready to think, feel, act for ourselves. Just as a child needs her father.
The disciples preparing the last supper (Jesus dies 3 days after) are directed by Jesus, “Behold, when ye are entered into the city, there shall a man meet you, bearing a pitcher of water; follow him into the house where he entereth in.” Luke 22:10.

It´s all very tenuous. Around now Aquarius may be in the side lines muttering his lines, ready to come on to stage, but no body knows really for sure. The Mayan Long Count Calendar has an end-date of December 21, 2012 and is associated, my friend wikipedia tells me, with the precession of the equinoxes and therefore can provide an important demarcation for the Age of Aquarius. Though astrologers can´t agree and vary wildly in their time estimates, now-ish could be the time that Pisces goes into Aquarius. So why don´t we have a look around for some of that water? It will do us no harm.

Aquarius

As we go into the cosmic morning (I pause here as if I know a lot more…) we are ready to take responsibility that in Pisces was too much for us. Aquarius is an age when we come into our own. Wikipedia has a whole section describing the qualities of the age of Aquarius, which I have super ultra reduced and chosen the ones I most like (meaning it is totally warped to my ideas - there were a couple of totally negative war mongering, capital controlling, nightmare visions that I would prefer, thank you very muchy, to simply ignore):

Qualities of Aquarius:

Revelation of truth and increased consciousness (Vera Reid)
Fellowship of Humankind (David Williams)
People becoming more impersonal (detached), yet more altruistic and humane (Marcia Moore and Mark Douglas)
Inventions, machines, worldwide organizations, international collaboration, and the fellowship of humankind. Culture, civilization, and intelligence. (Louis MacNeice)

(Cut and pasted) Ray Grasse believes the transition is like travelling into a foreign land, and suggests that if you want help navigating through the Aquarian Age, you should leave room for silence in your life; create a centre in your life (preferably involving a connection to the Absolute); resist the deadening of your world, so instead of filling up your life with manufactured goods or artificiality, bring living organic things into your life. He also says we need to maintain a compassionate heart; be involved in a network or group; become more self-reliant; avoid being hypnotized by the "group trance"; and take control of our everyday attitudes so not to be dependant upon external events for inner fulfilment.

Kant, the Philosopher (1724 – 1804), argued that evolution will occur when we take the responsibility for ourselves from the outside, from authority, as we internalise it. We make our own decisions. This is really not easy, especially in an age where morality is confused with almost non existent ethics. It is almost like learning our own language and having no one to talk to in it. But with time we will learn others lexicons, we will learn to listen.

I have been a walking bundle of questions this summer. Trying to work out who I am, what I am, what I want. It is not easy. And I have come to no conclusions. Like that lovely quote (again) of Rainer Maria Rilke “Try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms or like books written in a remote foreign language. Do not search now for answers that cannot be given to you because you would not be able to live them. And every thing has to be lived. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually live your way, without noticing, into the answer some day.”

Living the questions is changing my perspectives, of myself. I have done it on my own, without an authoritative help. Like a child learning to play their own game. My internal image of myself is changing, secretly on my inside, I am discovering a new me. And it is somewhat different to who I thought I was, what I thought I wanted. It is actually quite difficult to accept, but also quite liberating. I have no idea where I am going, who I am, what I am, want I want…but….like the quote from Sacha Guitry (a French film director, writer, actor):

“Wisdom comes from experience, and experience comes from foolishness”

I am becoming more confident in my foolishness, rather than being foolishly confident. I am learning that we do not need to know everything, we do not need the security of an authority structure stuck in a single truth based on a time that has now changed…It is like saying someone on the Camino de Santiago is closer to “enlightenment” at Pamplona that someone starting at Roncesvalles. There is no path, we make it by walking.

All wisemen say something like, whoever thinks they know all, knows nothing. We are specks in the universe. We as a summation of millions of human minds know only 5% of the universe…all we can do is walk our walk into the unknown, into ourselves.

Only we can discover who we are, by our ourselves, on our own. And as we do, ironically we become more universal.

We are moving away from the old energy, of everyone being the same and following authority (even if it is the inner authority figure sat on a throne of judgement) and moving towards something more sensitive, more flexible to the constantly changing, dancing life…as everything arises and passes away…

Instead of putting ourselves or others on a pedestal, I would like to think that we as a whole, are beginning to learn to accept ourselves as unique in all our differences, in our merits and difficulties, our light side and dark, knowing that they change, evolve, as we are moving towards our inner core…and learning that what someone called Ralph Waldo Emerson (Philosopher, Poet, Lecturer who also led the Transcendental movement of mid 19th century) said much better than I could express "What lies behind us, and what lies before us are small matters compared to what lies within us."

Guitry being foolish with his wife

Helping or Hindering: the Hitch to Heroes' Ego Heaven.

A couple of weeks back I made a big mistake.  I wanted to help someone and instead of being a hero it all blew up in my face and hurt others.  A far cry from helping.  Why so? I hear you ask.  Well…  I think I could blame my ego packing its swimsuit and plastic armbands into a suitcase and swaddling off on an “all inclusive holiday to paradise”.  Ego trip galore.  I wanted to go there and get the t-shirt.  Super me.

I heard a story from my friend, Toni, at the Direct Help Foundation in Nepal years back that shocked me.  He wanted to help a woman who lived with her three children in a tiny bathroom.  He wanted to help her get out of such an indignant situation.  But she was having nothing of it.  Better the devil you know that the devil you are petrified of.

Another one that my Toni told me is of a project he was doing.  He bought cheap rice for the women in the neighbourhood.  Meanwhile in his orphanage they were all enjoying the expensive rice.  There´s a big difference when rice is the main thing you are eating.  You really do notice the difference between shifting through tiny stones before boiling a bland, rough rice, and good rice that isn’t just stone-less but also creamy and delicious.   I guess every time Toni ate his good rice he was imaging the cheap rice he was giving to his neighbours and it just didn’t seem right.  So he changed the rice so everyone had good rice. A neighbour dropped in and said she didn’t want the good stuff, please just give her the normal stony rice.  “Why?” a perplexed Toni asked, “Because,” she answered softly “my children will get used to this, and if this free rice stops, I won´t be able to give my children good rice and they will complain”.   

Which teaches us two things, first: we can´t impose our idealism of our perfect garden (previous blog) on others - they have different conditions to us, our prized plants will not grow in their soil.  Every other person apart from us has a life different to ours, different perspectives, different needs and values.  Even people who are twins have their own individual garden.   

And the second: adolescents all over the world are difficult.

There is something that I think we all do too easily (at least I do), and that is to think that everyone thinks and feels like us.  My good taste, I believe, must be seen as good taste to all the world.  Surprisingly (at least to me) it isn´t.  Jack Sprat and all that (he scoffed out on the fat while his wife picked the lean).  We all have our own paths to tread and we can´t assume that others will learn as much as us, be as happy as us or be as fulfilled, frog marched along our particular path.

I guess the only thing we can do, if we see that someone could be in need of a helping hand, is to say to them we´re here if they need us. Making people feel not lonely anymore and supported is perhaps the best work we ever do. 

Montse my mate, is on a roll at the moment with the idea that when we do get a chance to help, we should do things to help the person along their own path, instead of doing things for them and taking over. It´s that old nut again: fish a man a dinner, he has a dinner, teach him to fish, he has all the fish he may need…let´s hope he can cook.

So, the conclusion is, people have to want help before we run to them with our super hero attitude and we have to wait for them to ask for our help.  This can be verbally or otherwise.  We can nudge them a tiny bit maybe, hint, encourage, but essentially all we can do is wait and be there.

Easy conclusion.

Well done.  Lets go home and have a cup of tea.

But wait a moment…does that not also imply that we ourselves, when we yearn for help and advice, also have to ask for it? 

Instead of moaning how cruel the world is?

Crikey.

Gulp.

I find it hard, for many reasons; not wanting to admit a weakness, not wanting to disturb others, not feeling worthy, not wanting to feel inferior, fear of pay back time.  Bah bah bah I say, but geez they are tough cookies to crack.  

But if we are honest we are all in “a situation” in certain aspects of our lives like the Nepalese woman in the bathroom, better the devil you know…else we would be Buddhas growing a big pot bellies by now.  We feel clever staying in our cages even though the door is open.  We find ourselves in a situation in which people can help us out, but we are having none of it…

The biggie, the big biggie, is admitting to ourselves that we may indeed have a problem.  Pulling our heads out from the comfortable sand to realise that we are not, after all, a perfect being, and that we need help.  And before that seemingly insurmountable hurdle is hurdled, we will not listen to anyone.  Because they just sound daft.  

Or worse still, insulting.

The thing is that most people LOVE helping others when they can and know how to.  Enric has developed over the years an impressive internal map of Barcelona.  He´s a veritable walking GPS.  When there are tourists wavering, ripped map in hand, he walks a little more slowly, swerving towards them, hoping they will ask him directions.  He loves being able to use what he has created.  It is so satisfying. 

We all have mental structures that we have created, and they are magnificent.  They are our “gardens”.  We have all sorts of understandings in those flowerbeds.  Even my 2 year old nephew knows how to turn off Adrian’s super TV.  I´ve already asked him for help, we contracted.  So I’ll leave that to him.

We all know stuff that others don´t.  And using that info with others (helping) is quite titillating...Isn’t it?  Cos if not, it´s like having the car of your dreams without any petrol. It´s getting you no-where.

And as to that idea of not wanting to disturb people…I muse and feel assured by the idea, that people these days don´t really do things that they aren´t prepared to do.  Let´s face it, if a friend phones and asks for help, I would love to…after class.  We all have our priorities, and normally nothing is too urgent that we can´t fit it in easily around our schedules.   

So I say, be generous, let someone help us.  Help them get that special feeling from helping.  Sharing is two-fold. As you give you receive as you receive you give.  Buddha said “If you knew as I did about giving and receiving you wouldn´t let a meal pass without giving some of it away”

So, I reckon if we need help, ask for it.  And if we want to help others, wait for them to ask us in their own way.  And when we help, the first thing (and often the only thing) we have to do is listen, because what we want or need is not necessary want they would want or need.  With our own mental structure we can listen and ask questions about theirs that help throw the light on a solution of their own that is compatible with their garden structure, and in the meantime probably teaches us a thing or two.

Else it could all blow up in your face and your ego will laugh at you with a bad palm tree shirt on. Trust me, I´ve been there.

Thanks for reading, it really helps!

Thanks to Toni Aguilar for permission to include his stories.  

He set up the Direct Help Foundation (http://tdhf.ibernet.com) 

and is one of the world´s true experts in Humanitarian Aid.

Happy Saint George´s Day!

Saint George by Paolo Uccelo 1470

There are quite a lot of differences between Catalonia and the North West of England. On the Costa Brava beaches there is a strange absence of people, hands clasped around warm flasks of tea, huddled behind windbreakers; and in Stockport County Council, who have sneakily made use of internet possibilities, eerily doesn´t have queues of people, waiting numbed as time grinds to a halt and the barer of the numbered ticket wonders where they got lost in the matrix.

But do not dispair, there are heart warmingly similar things too. Both like black pudding (but at different times of the day), both have cotton industry backgrounds, and Saint George-Sant Jordi is their patron saint. And Happy Saint Day George! It is today, April the 23rd.

It´s a wonderful day in Catalonia. It is when the true spirit of the kind, tradition loving, big hearted Catalans comes out (rather than those not-to-be-mentioned political ideas). It is the equivalent of Saint Valentine´s day - the day for lovers. Women buy men books and men buy women red roses. The brain and the heart unite. Knowledge is comprehended and all is well on Rambla de Catalunya. 

 Las Ramblas de Catalunya - Diada de Sant Jordi

There must be many different perspectives of the myth of Saint George. We studied it a little in symbology and if you don´t want to know much about it, stop reading now.

…So, my faithful friend ("just you, just you, just you" (an echo) there´s no-one else here), you and I are mystery freaks and instead of getting on in what the others call reality, your heart swells and breath becomes rapid entering into a fantasy world which seems more real that a red double-decker bus. And rightly so!

The prince of the skies, Saint George came down from the air. He fell from paradise, from the Platonic highs of Apollonic order, flew down through intuition and found himself confronted by a double-decker bus. Or rather his earthly reality. He is no longer the prince of the skies but now a (half) human (half) being. He is pulled up flat, to face the dragon.

They say that we are born on earth impure. The Catalans would say malparits, which is literally born badly, figuratively translated as “in a sorry state”. We come out all funny and just not quite how we should. We are not in harmony with the universe (one verse) but we pipe our own out-of-tune song. The cosmos flows around in orderly lines, like a ploughed field, in harmonic unison with each other, like an orchestra with each musician playing in unison creating a beautiful uplifting piece of music. And then we are born and get out those party horn things. And blow it. But it´s not exactly Mozart.

http://www.lladyhwk1.com/Wavs/NYHorn.wav

The dragon is a representation of this rather uncoordinated clumsiness. We are all made up of the four elements, everything is. In the perfect heaven, the four elements are equally balanced and working together: Air (intuition), Water (emotions), Fire (thinking) and Earth (sensations). The Ancients, Psychologists, eastern medicine etc all say we need to balance our four elements.  It is the secret of physical and psychological health.  And since non of us (as far as I know) are in a perfect Buddha (or Christ etc) state, we´ve got work to do!

Diagram: Aristotle elemental qualities

The dragon has all of the four elements, he angrily blows fire out from his mouth, his wings allow him to fly clumsily in the air, his claws grip into the earth and he cries big baby crocodile tears. But his elements are all badly born. Clumsy and angry, his elements don´t befit him at all, they are all at odds with each other, like trying to light a fire in the rain or flying through tarmac...

So, Saint George is in a predicament finding this dragon inside, coming down to earth and discovering his instincts. And as all cavaliers, he is faced with one option to save his good name:

Slowly, calmly, he gets out his sword and shield.

He fights nobly from the top of his white horse, just like all of our fantasy boyfriends would do, and with his sophisticated sword work he manages to pierce the reality of himself (like Shiva´s sword) and dominate his dragon. Some stories just go right ahead and kill the dragon off, but how can instincts be killed? Surely it is impossible. It must have been some granddad getting carried away at bedtime story time, and his grandchild happened to be Walt Disney…anyway, the dragon is dominated, Saint George is able to dominate with his mind all the impulses of his instincts.  It is of note he has managed among which to control his sardineta. (The little sardine in Catalan is a euphemism for his todger). Dominating the dragon he has aligned his four elements to be more in harmony. They do not fight so much anymore.

Buddhists say that controlling the breath (air) calms the mind…Saint George finds himself in a more balanced state and as a result, from the mouth of the cave, steps a beautiful maiden now that the dragon is not ferociously guarding the entrance. 

At this point Jungians get all excited and if they haven´t wet themselves already, and shout (ironically impulsively) “His anima, his anima!” which to a normal person is the feminine inner personality within him. His anima influences his interactions with women and his attitudes toward them. It is a more feeling side of him, which needs to be expressed, and if expressed in a harmonious way, while the dragon is comfortable domesticated, it is beauty and truth and purity and all things princess like.

Especially now with internet we have access to any information we may crave in this earthly world. We can be walking dictionaries, with built in GPS systems bluetoothing our dentist. But until we have understood our knowledge through love, it cannot be comprehended.

I don´t know if you´ve had that wonderful feeling of suddenly seeing something clearly with fresh eyes and “clicking”. All at once you´ve really got it.  Before you thought you knew, but now you can “see” it. It is like pealing away an onion skin, or taking off a veil. Normally they are things that are so simple that we wonder actually if we knew all along.

If we only understand our world with our brains, it is dry and unconnected. Comprehension is with our hearts and we connect with our profound memories, with our entire being. This connection of knowledge and heart is represented by the union of Saint George with the beautiful maiden, and how lovely she is. She who allows us to leave those dark depths of Pluto to resurface for fresh air, and to see and smell the roses.  (The Rose is the western equivalent of the eastern Lotus flower). 

The prince and the princess reunite, masculine and feminine come together once more, the sky and the earth rejoin... They have sex (alchemically speaking of course...)

The union of Saint Jordi with his maiden creates a rebirth. This time the birth is a little better. They are transformed into the castle and live happily ever after (according to Walt D). The castle with its perfect four walls is a representation of the four elements in perfect harmony.

And the cycle comes to a close, but not an end. Like any spiral, Saint Jordi is back where he began, at the same point but not the same man. Now he has aligned himself a smidgen to be a little more universal, he has dominated his dragon for a while, and he has incorporated the Beauty of the glimpse of Truth into his self thanks to his inner princess coming out of the cave.

Saint Jordi, of course, is each and everyone of us. So, rest a while and float in the clouds. But surely you wouldn´t want to be in Paradise for ever would you? It gets terribly boring. And there is that windbreaker waiting for us on Blackpool beach to huddle up beside and have real physical contact. Like the gales on our fair shores, Saint Jordi is in constant movement, never getting stale. Soon he´ll find himself freefalling like an autumn leaf back down to earth, birthing in another weird but wonderful way and evolving through love.

Happy Sant Jordi!

Easter Growth

So that chocolate scoffing time of year has come around again.  Breaking open a Cadbury´s Cream Egg even though your stomach´s shouting out “Intoxification!” and your visions begins to blur.  Which is probably exactly what the Hindus mean when they say that the Mundane Egg, in which Brahma gestated, broke its shell in spring.

Easter is the first full moon after the equinox (“equal night”).  This year it was on March 30^th.  It is when the masculine and feminine energies are both at their plenitude and create an energy of fertility on earth, depicted by the engraving “The Philosophers Compass”.  Larry Boemler in his book "Asherah and Easter" writes “The Teutonic dawn goddess of fertility [was] known variously as Ostare, Ostara, Ostern, Eostra, Eostre, Eostur, Eastra, Eastur, Austron and Ausos.”  We get the point Larry…

If you´ve a garden, you can´t help but notice how the plants are having their first splurge of growth, of which I´ve proudly attached “fotos” of our first sproutings.  If we were all dependant on the growth of wheat rather than opening up Mars Bars, we´d be pretty damned glad to see it begin to grow.  And wine lovers will smile with wetted lips as they see what looked dead in the winter, spring into life once more, with little buds bursting on the vines.  The full moon gives the plants a complementary light to go for a marathon of energetic growing through all of the night and all the day…it´s quite logical really.

But Easter isn´t just about the nature´s rhythm, but also about the inner life.  Gods who die on the cross around this time (Jesus, Tammuz, Osiris, Dionysus, Orpheus…) represent how we as spiritual beings need to be have “a second birth” into a greater consciousness of ourselves and our world.  In order to just to start, it is necessary to dominate our egos, like in the Puranic allegory, when Viswakarman's daughter Sanjana (spiritual consciousness), complained as wives tend to do, about the natural qualities of their husbands.  After a while no matter how shiny and great and brill they are, they start to irritate.  Her husband was Surya the sun (often linked in astrology to the ego).  She went back to her daddy and complained he was getting all the attention, that he was shining too bright.  Like any loving father would do, he got his sun-in-law by the neck and being a carpenter of high craftsmanship, crucified the sun on his lathe and cut away an eighth part of his rays – creating around him a dark auroela.  A crown of thorns.

Which is basically spiritual initiation: killing all of those fiery passions, and going through hell, facing our demons, before we can rise into new life and be reborn. We become more conscious of ourselves, less reactionary, more responsive.  We´ve all been through it in some way, some emotional crisis which has made us understand ourselves better where at the end we firmly wobble, “I´m glad it happened but I wouldn´t like to go through that again!” 

In the past initiation was intense, people were put through all sorts of, what my father would call, character building situations, and then left exhausted attached to a “cross” (which I reckon must represent the symbolic centre of ourselves, the centre of creation) They lay there in the dark for three days in which their spirit descended into Hades’ underworld, to be reborn again into a new life once back in the light of day.  Initiates were left exhausted in caves and such, to encounter their inner demons, to face fear, and dominate it, to awaken to another perspective of themselves and their world.

Which is not exactly the same as scoffing our faces with Cadbury cream eggs and then getting stabs of stomach ache…

I remember in primary school going into panic staring into the face of my friend who had fiendishly asked “Are you a human being?” because I had no idea what she was on about.  We are both, we are a human and we are a being, we are physical and we are spiritual.  And as we go to the gym to get perfect bodies, so we are challenged with the evolution of our spirits.  Every time we refuse to listen to that spirit, the divine nature within us is “crucified”, but after each crucifixion there has to be a resurrection, else we would end up as a dead physical blob, only to be later recognised by the Ben and Jerry carton stuck on our heads.  There has to be a balance, we can´t just be spiritual, and we can´t just be physical, because, after my experience in primary school, I can say quite confidently now that we are all human beings.  Psychology, and Life, is the idea of balancing both the “light” and the “dark” within us. Such as in Spring and Autumn equinoxes. And we are back to Star Wars again.  Here is the battle plan described by H P Blavatsky:

He who strives to resurrect the Spirit crucified in him by his own terrestrial passions, and buried deep in the "sepulchre" of his sinful flesh; he who has the strength to roll back the stone of matter from the door of his own inner sanctuary, he has the risen Christ in him. The "Son of Man" is no child of the bond-woman—flesh, but verily of the free-woman—Spirit, the child of man's own deeds and the fruit of his own spiritual labour. (H.P.B. Series No. 7, pp. 4-5)

But why why does it have to be so painful, so difficult, so bloody scary at times.  Why can´t we just all be nice and get on so friendly and just evolve picking out the thorns from our innerds with tweezers, like apes deflea each other? Padma-Sambhava, an Indian sage guru, had to say of it:

Although sesame seed is the source of oil, and milk the source of butter, not until the seed be pressed and the milk churned do the oil and butter appear. Although sentient beings are of the Buddha essence itself, not until they realize this can they attain Nirvana.

To achieve spiritual growth we face a difficult path, in which we have to do things in a specific way.  How is something that each of us must search for ourselves…

Easter is a real and symbolic time of growth through death of the old, and resurrection of the new, of our continual becoming.  I think the idea is rounded up nicely in a eggshell, by Anais Nin:

And the day came when the risk it took to remain tight inside the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.

Happy Easter everyone! Egg smashing galore!

Words are Mantras. Why not say loving words to ourselves?

Masaru Emoto's water crystal "love".

 We can make a treaure trove of the water in our bodies!

Words are mantras. They form our self images and from there our ideas of the world. In the west we say, and often even with a sense of inverted pride, things like “I am shit, so shit, at maths. I can´t do sums to save my life.”

Which in my case is true.

We smile foolishly, charmingly and proudly declare our ineptitudes. It´s fine to hear “I´m not very good at cooking”, or “I´m hopeless at dancing” and as the words tipple from their lips, we smile a supportive-it-doesn´t-matter smile which makes us feel ever so benevolent. Priests help us with the “Oh! Bless me lord for I am not worthy” chant, and guilt has stayed in fashion since the Oliver Cromwell and the Puritans were in power.

Meanwhile in the East monks chant mantras such as “I cherish the divinity within me” “I worship the light that I emanate” “I am god, god is me.”

We could play spot the differences…

“I am shit” – and – “I am divine”

Quite a sea of separation between them really. Not to understate the issue at hand.

Words create us and destroy us. They define us and create our individual separate beings, our images of ourselves, our beliefs about ourselves. They make us separate to be able to create the necessary distance from the whole to see the whole, so we are not blind to the forest because of the tree in our eye sort of thing. But at the same time they destroy our entelechy, our relationship to the whole.

So as words create enough distance, enough separation, to be able to see ourselves, our lives and our worlds, at the same time they reduce our sense of “cosmic” connectedness, or to put in another way, our connection to our (Jungian) “self”. Words, like layers of an onion, cover and protect our inner being, and at the same time those same words are what individually create us.

So lets chose them carefully god damn it.

I once read in Rob Brezsny´s “Pronoia” to write a love poem to myself. I did. It opened up my eyes. I´m not a bad sort after all. It was a sensation in which I realised that I did indeed have the capacity to love myself. Not arrogantly, but in a cherishing, supporting, encouraging way. It was such a soft and comforting feeling. Ohh this is all a bit embarrassing, but I felt as if I were floating in a cocoon of the light of my own love, and I realised that all was well with the world. I needed nothing as long as I had this connection with myself. It´s impossible to really explain, and I can hear sort of embarrassed, ironic, smirks, (I wonder even if it is my own?) but I explain because it was something that happened for about 10 minutes 3 years ago and still affects me, comforts me, in a timeless sort of manner.

“Authentic Happiness” by Seligman and “Love, Inspiration, Hope” by Karena Kast, “Pronoia” by Rob Brezny and most Jungian Psychoanalysis, all say similar things: “Try and love yourself”. I just say that so that you don´t think that I´m an absolute freak. Let me tell you again, I´m shit at maths.

Loving ourselves can sound arrogant and dinner party chat it is not. It could all get rather embarrassing. “I love NY” is fine to wear across our chest; “I love myself” could be somewhat misconstrued. But loving self is an important human task – it is where all our habits-thoughts-actions-reactions stem from. It could even be our main goal.

Loving ourselvses is not arrogance or conceitedness.  Arrogance (prp. of arrogare "to claim for oneself, assume,") separates ourselves from others, we place ourselves as higher beings which is just silly really.  Even when we think we are "special" it is the ego tricking us into distancing ourselves further from the whole.  We are ALL "unique"...all of us.

Loving ourselvses is not conceitedness (from conceive based on analogy of deceit and receipt. Sense evolved from "something formed in the mind," to "fanciful or witty notion").  Conceit is when we are creating our own images of ourselves that are simply not true. When we think we are super duper (at something or other) but somehow we have to force ourselves to maintain that image, creating quite a stress to our psyches. We try to be something we are not, blocking our intrinsic natures.

Love is keeping our heart open to the here and now, to ourselves as we are. Love allows the ability to see as it is, not how we would like it to be. And to accept it. To see yourself as you really are, and accept both the good and the bad. No one is perfect and yet we all manage eventually to love others. So why not ourselves?

Now I don´t want to go Jesus Christ on you all, but when he said “Love your neighbour as yourself” being one of the main messages of the Christian religion, it infers that beforehand you have managed to love yourself. It´s self evident isn´t it? Because if we love others as we do ourselves, and we continue using negative words about ourselves, we would have to shout “you are shit at driving” every time our neighbour got into his car. In the same way a Christ consciousness doesn´t beat up on others, it doesn´t beat up on itself. The idea can´t be to make ourselves feel lousy, putting ourselves out trying to help others in ways that harm us while we chant “I´m shit at this” and “You are so much better” and “You are worth more”. No, no, no.

Love, I believe is something that puts each other in a better position to be able to be who each naturally is. I do not think that Love is helping someone else to do that and putting yourself in a worse situation, nor putting yourself in a better situation at someone else´s expense. If we are creative we’ll see that there are plenty of combinations to do, to be, something that gives us the same benefits, and choosing one of those that is compatible with our neighbour, with our partners, with our friends, with our family, is simply an act of love to ourselves and to them. In so doing we live in greater harmony.

A friend of mine, edging into her sixties, recently discovered how to love. Beforehand she had felt an impostor of love….loving with the head only. Who are we who say we love? Who are those who we love, and it is real? It was one of those situations…until she let herself comprehend that she is not a pain in the ass, that she is not bad company, until she turned it around and began to believe that she had something to offer: herself. And that it was valuable. She realised, relaxing into her relationships with friends, that she listens really well, and that recently the things that she says (that I think are deep and wonderful) are not just silly little stupidities, but are in fact so very useful to others, they are so deep and wonderful. She helps people to see themselves in a new light. And as she realises, she enjoys her relationships so much more, and gives so much more, and enjoys, in a sort of ever increasing cycle of loving herself and loving others with her listening and her new found confidence in her loving words.

If we love ourselves, Vipassana says, it sort of runs over the brim, and we can´t help but see the world for what it is, for the better or worse, and still love it and those in it.

So go ahead, take off those glasses, see who you are. It´s like hearing your own voice, your own words, on a tape recorder. Gulp. Stand amazed and embarrassed and somewhat disgusted and happy and genuinely surprised. Accept it.

Those around you already do.

And Love yourself. Go on, you know you want to.

Doing things with Love

 

A couple of years back I did a speech in a conference in a very fine stately sort of building surrounded by tendered gardens in a hall for 500 people.  It was titled “¿Hacemos las cosas con Amor?” (Do we do things with Love?).  I was quite pleased with how well I was coping in front of the audience of 30, in spite of the echo, and at the end of the forty minute speech I had a standing ovation from about 18 of them.  The others didn’t stand because they were in a balancing act trying to clap and not let their walking sticks fall over. 

But even though the audience wasn’t so grand in numbers, nor young in age, I was proud of my speech, not only for the fact that they seemed to understand my accent, but for the content.  It basically went:  if we all do things with love, simple day to day things, then we create more meaningful relationships with ourselves, others and the world. 

We’ve all seen people go onto the street wired for an argument.  I’ve done it.  I’m on my bike one day and a car looks like they are going to swerve into the bike lane…so I slow down and give them space.  Another day, the same situation and I angrily keep my ground, let them nearly get me and with that excuse knock all uppity on their window.  They say “Perdona! I didn’t see you” and I launch into a speech about being having to be more aware on the streets, that cyclists have no protection, I hint at possible death etc etc etc.  I jump off my bike and get right onto my high horse. 

But what about if we do it the other way around? If we go onto the street “wired” to help, to be nice, to smile at the least opportunity?  If you try it, it makes you feel like Amelie.  Or Mary Poppins.  It depends on the weather forecast (it’s the umbrella thing).

So this weekend we had some bad news.  On Friday men came knocking on the door and asked about the leak.  What leak?  The leak downstairs they say is drip drip dripping into the vacated bank downstairs. 

God damn. 

Apparently it had been like that for a month.  I’m used to banks insipiently being a money drain, but not like this.  So we spent the weekend (workers respect the Sabbath here with a holiness…) without water.  I didn’t realise how often I wash my hands, or turn on taps.  I hadn’t realised how much I take for granted something so elementary such as water.  With it on again, it really makes me appreciate not just unsticky fingers but the simple fact of water, clean good water.  On tap.

I found the whole affair somewhat threatening.  A mishap within my own castle.  I can only just accept uncontrollable negative things outside, but inside…  So on Monday, Señor Camilla’s brother-in-law, the plumber, came along.  Just to see his face was a relief.  He had such a clear countenance that I instantly felt that I could trust this man which in a world of lampisterias (Spanish plumbers) is a relief in itself.  You can be put over a drippy barrel.  

And I was right, he and his trusty assistant found the leak.  It was under the corner of the bath.  Relieved, we were able to flush.

So today he came and did the final touches, which were putting the spare tiles back into place.  We got out the tiles and Sñr Comilla´s brother-in-law got to work. 

They say it’s all in the timing and this morning I awoke with a particularly bad case of the trots (diarrhoea).   Sñr Comilla´s brother-in-law was really lovely about it all.  A couple of times I found myself doubling over a bit hoping that he could clean the rocky lumps from under the door to be able to close it before my bottom turned into Mount Etna and erupted.  Meanwhile Enric and him are having a right manly chin wag, about the size of tiles, how tiles aren’t the same these days, about their different tools etc.  Sñr Comilla´s brother-in-law was particularly touched by the offer of a coffee, which he sipped while I was groaned in the toilet.

Later Enric was at my bedside with a home remedy from our friendly lampisteria-cum-doctor: a small glass of coca-cola does the trick.  He finished his work, by which time he had invited Enric and I to his house in a little village, Mont Blanc, the next time we were up.  Really he was so very caring, so very open, so very warm hearted…

Which was a good job, because a good job he did not.

Tonight inspecting his work, I said to Enric, “the tiles are jutting out a bit”.  He said “And that was the third attempt, he broke two before that”.  We had a couple of loose tiles in the hall way that we constantly crunched over from the table to the kitchen, and now they are nice and firm, one in a few more pieces than previously and the other slight rised.  To put it blunt, Mr Camilla’s brother-in-law is a bit of a cack hand.

But do you know, I am more than pleased to pay up for the signed three hours, that we reckon a skilled tiler could have done in half of the time.  Because as I sit on the toilet, now in a controlled fashion, I look with a warm feeling, at the jutting out tile.  It reminds me:  it is not what you do, but how you do it.

I´ve got on instantly with that jutting out tile, it makes me think of Mr Camilla’s brother-in-law and wonder what his house is like in that little village, him sat out back with his twenty by twenty tiling.  I like thinking of him doing his best, with his good heart, really trying.  It´s like our house has a bit more character.  But if a horrible man had done it in a bad mood, I wouldn’t react in the same way, at all.  I’d get all farty about it while sat on the white telephone.

You see, it doesn’t matter what we do, even if we are just an English teacher, getting grammar mixed up while trying to untangle phrasal verbs in front of students, or if we are a high flyer dealing with lots of money, or a person who cleans the stairwell in buildings…it doesn’t matter what we do, but how we do it.  

It’s not so important the result of our labour, but how we laboured.  And really, if we do things with love, we don’t only end up enjoying what we do and loving that others appreciate it, but we begin to love ourselves.  Our worlds change. 

No sorry that’s wrong. 

We change.

Just like the Little Prince who tames the fox who tells him  "Here´s my secret, it couldn´t be simpler:  It is only with the heart that one can see rightly. What is essential is invisible to the eye."

And so a big thank you to Señor Comilla’s brother-in-law for the unwobbly reminder that doing things with love makes all the difference because at the end of the day it is not what we do, but who we are, that counts.