Since last week the vertigo is on me, or in me, or over me, and the world is whirling in slow motion around me. I looked Louise Hays', "You Can Heal Your Life", the one I could not get away from when I was growing up. My crazy healer mother always had some annoying observation to make: Sore throat, "So what are you not saying, my Blom, spit it out!" Sore tummy, "So what happened at school that you cannot digest, come on, tell!". Other mothers went to the chemist. My mother went to the famous little blue book ( which I have inherited of course) and then left me to my own devices. She didn't know what to do when I was sick. Mostly sent me around the neighbour's house for Wendy, my mother number 2, to do something practical. Getting ill to get attention certainly wasn't a tactic that worked in our household.
So, the book says 'Flighty scattered thinking. A refusal to look'. So this is what I am asking myself. What am I not looking at?
I feel like a diver in murky waters, just my own breathing for company. I wake up in the night, turning in my sleep, feeling I am going to fall out of bed, my heart fluttering in my chest. I am wandering aimlessly through misty woods, the undergrowth crunching under my feet, the fingers of fog damp on my cheeks, I feel chilled and unable to focus.
I suddenly remembered a time like this many years ago, on a visit to Ireland. It was a magical visit, a pivotal time in my life, and I experienced some extreme dejavu, but that is another story.
A magician of sorts crossed my path and encouraged me to be be still for a while and get out of my head into my heart. He led me on a visual journey and I found a place inside that I still I go when I am anxious. I had forgotten about that place till just a few days ago, and it is like reconnecting with an old friend. I am crossing a vast wide river using stepping stones. The torrents are quite fast and the water very clear, round slippery pebbles on the bottom, always varying depths. I can't see the other side, and sometimes the next stepping stone is not visible to me.
This means, instead of panic, it is time to be still, sit down on the rock, stick my toes in, listen to the gurgling, gentle churning, of the water and come back to myself. One thing is sure, always sure, the next stepping stone will reveal itself.
This is where I am now, sitting on the rock in the middle of the river, just waiting and being and knowing that the path will be shown to me.
And also thinking about another old friend, TS Eliot, this from his Four Quartets:
I said to my soul, be still,
and wait without hope, for hope would be hope for the wrong thing;
wait without love, for love would be love for the wrong thing,
there is yet faith-
But the faith abd the love and the hope are all in the waiting.
Wait without thought,
for you are not ready for thought;
So the darkness shall be light, and the stillness the dancing.
Amen.
Wishing you stillness today, and dancing.
So, the book says 'Flighty scattered thinking. A refusal to look'. So this is what I am asking myself. What am I not looking at?
I feel like a diver in murky waters, just my own breathing for company. I wake up in the night, turning in my sleep, feeling I am going to fall out of bed, my heart fluttering in my chest. I am wandering aimlessly through misty woods, the undergrowth crunching under my feet, the fingers of fog damp on my cheeks, I feel chilled and unable to focus.
I suddenly remembered a time like this many years ago, on a visit to Ireland. It was a magical visit, a pivotal time in my life, and I experienced some extreme dejavu, but that is another story.
A magician of sorts crossed my path and encouraged me to be be still for a while and get out of my head into my heart. He led me on a visual journey and I found a place inside that I still I go when I am anxious. I had forgotten about that place till just a few days ago, and it is like reconnecting with an old friend. I am crossing a vast wide river using stepping stones. The torrents are quite fast and the water very clear, round slippery pebbles on the bottom, always varying depths. I can't see the other side, and sometimes the next stepping stone is not visible to me.
This means, instead of panic, it is time to be still, sit down on the rock, stick my toes in, listen to the gurgling, gentle churning, of the water and come back to myself. One thing is sure, always sure, the next stepping stone will reveal itself.
This is where I am now, sitting on the rock in the middle of the river, just waiting and being and knowing that the path will be shown to me.
And also thinking about another old friend, TS Eliot, this from his Four Quartets:
I said to my soul, be still,
and wait without hope, for hope would be hope for the wrong thing;
wait without love, for love would be love for the wrong thing,
there is yet faith-
But the faith abd the love and the hope are all in the waiting.
Wait without thought,
for you are not ready for thought;
So the darkness shall be light, and the stillness the dancing.
Amen.
Wishing you stillness today, and dancing.
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