On seahorses and safety nets

I am very happy to report the storm is over. It has been hard to describe and I am still not sure where it came from, like a strange and eery current from the depths of a calm sea, come to stirr things up. Everything is all pink and luminescent and harmonious again, and I am deeply relieved. Many things helped me to weather the storm. My house mate, my loved one, the artists, Claire, my colleagues in my office, my students, you- all firmly woven into a safety net of support that holds me, even when you don't know it!

In the middle of this feeling of endless waves washing over me and not being able to come up for breath, I remember a very helpful image that was given to me by my Swiss TCM practitioner and  acupuncturist many years ago in Ravensburg. It was not long after my mother's death and my first miscarriage, and it was the Chinese year of the horse. I was born in the year of the horse and it is said that every twelve years when the years revolve to your own sign, it is supposed to be an auspicious year for you.

It was a water year, and Karin said that she had come up with an image which would help to get me through the storms. She said, "Imagine yourself as a little seahorse at the bottom of the ocean, with your little seahorse tail firmly wrapped around a reliable frond of seaweed. No matter how strong the waves are on the surface, you will be swayed by the currents, but you will stay calm and composed in the depths".

So there I have been for the last 4 weeks or so, a little coral colored seahorse, holding on to my bit of seagrass for dear life. I have been fortunate to have all manner of interesting and beautiful sea creature swim past and share a smile, and have been surrounded by lovely plants and water treasures to distract me. I was even able to experience an unforgettable perfect moment of intimacy and peace amidst the fear.

Dear friends, if times are a little hard, KNOW without a doubt that the feeling will pass; and if times are bliss, give thanks with all your heart!

Threshholds

One of the reasons I love Oman are the beautiful ancient mud and brick buildings in the old towns everywhere. They embody a certain kind of magic for me.

I once wrote this:

What young girl
twirled her skirts and skipped 
across the threshhold of this place?

What old man
hummed and bared his heart,
light playing on his face?

This place so thin
like skin, so strong
Time disintegrates and generations meet
in this precious dusk.

Take care of the golf balls

I don't often post stories that are not my own, but this is another "'oldie but goldie" that has periodically been crossing my path for many years. You might know it, but it never ceases to help me to get my priorities straight.

A professor stood before his philosophy class and had some items in front of him. When the class began, wordlessly he picked up a very large and empty pickle jar and proceeded to fill it with golf balls.

He then asked the students if the jar was full. They agreed that it was. So the professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into the jar. He shook the jar lightly. The pebbles rolled into the open areas between the golf balls. He then asked the students again if the jar was full. They agreed it was.

The professor next picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar. Of course, the sand filled up everything else. He asked once more if the jar was full. The students responded with a unanimous "yes."

The professor then produced two glasses of chocolate milk from under the table and poured the entire contents into the jar effectively filling the empty space between the sand.

The students laughed.

The Moral of the Story - The professor waited for the laughter to subside....

"Now," said the professor, "I want you to recognize that this jar represents your life. The golf balls are the important things...your family, your children, your health, your friends, your favorite passions. Things that if everything else was lost and only they remained, your life would still be full."

"The pebbles are the other things that matter like your job, your home, your car."

"The sand is everything else...The small stuff. If you put the sand into the jar first, there is no room for the pebbles or the golf balls. The same goes for life. If you spend all your time and energy on the small stuff, you will never have room for the things that are critical to your happiness."

"Play with your children. Take time to get medical checkups. Take your partner to dinner. Play another 18. There will always be time to clean the house or fix the disposal."

"Take care of the golf balls first, the things that really matter. Set your priorities, the rest is just sand."

Luminescense in the deep

I wonder why it is so difficult writing about times that feel hard and challenging. I always want to sound happy and upbeat and sunshiney, and THANK GOD, mostly I am and do. But when I am too busy, unfocused or ambivalent, headachy or over tired, emotional or going through utterly irrational fears that have no basis in reality, I just want to hide them away from myself and the world.
 I just want to run, but then am always reminded once again of Hester, "You can run, my Blom, but remember, you always take yourself along!"
 I once ran from London to Hongkong in one fell swoop, only to realise there in a bar in Kowloon, that I had indeed "brought myself along".

I have not been sleeping well, and I have a small muscle under my left eye that keeps on jumping and shuddering. I am putting my light off too late and then wake up at 4 am with knots on my stomach that I cannot name. I am just not in a very safe space with myself right now, diving down into unknown unchartered waters.

I have told myself to let it be, just let it be. This too shall pass and the light heart is sure be restored.

Today, I felt a prick of  familiarity to this feeling, and thought back to the time when I was feeling really heavy and scared, attending a grieving seminar in southern Germany many years ago. I know I have spoken of it here before- a beautiful quiet Franciscan monastry and an ageless wise and childlike nun.
I spoke to her of my feeling of diving through the deep murky slush, completely disorientated and bewildered.She instructed me to go where I fear most, close my eyes and willingly go with the process, dive even deeper down and just trust what was happening.

I could hardly breathe at first, my heart exploding in my chest, but willed myself to continue down down down, through layers of blackness, until inexplicable I started to perceive a kind of luminescence. A tiny feeling of relief washed over me, at least something was becoming visible. I started to faintly make out sea creatures and plants, and then also shells, amazing pearls and other treasures, all glowing with an inner light. I had reached a place of unusual and sublime beauty and serenity.
As I had that memory today, I realised anew, that I need not fear these moments, but need to embrace them and dive into them, in order to find the gifts that are hidden within.

So, dear ones, I wish us all the inner courage to embrace the moments that bring us trepidation, and know that they have special fruits to bear.

The best showers in the world

I spent a day and a night last week in the desert.  I always go to the same place and it always works its magic on me. I slept outside and fell asleep watching the stars. Although the daytime temperatures are already relatively uncomfortable, the night is cool and refreshing. Rashid, my friend who owns the place, had told me before that he would not be there, so it was a lovely suprise to find him there after all and have a proper catch up. We drove back together through an amazing thunderstorm, the sky lit up with lightning and water falling buckets from the sky. Very unusual for this desert country.

What I actually want to tell is that in my friendship circle, the bathrooms in the camp are known as 'the best showers in the world'. They are seperate from the sleeping huts, spacious, and are open to the sky. It is such a great feeling to be standing under the water with no roof above you.

There I was towelling myself off, when I spotted a small grasshopper who was desperately hopping around trying to get out of the enclosed space. I opened the door and with my towel gently tried to coax it in the right direction. Of course instintually it moved in the opposite direction. I then resorted to a good few firm sweeps of the towel to finally get it out through the door. It sailed away free into the morning.

I wondered if the universe doesn't do this to us sometimes; first it tries to coax us subtly in the right direction and if we don't listen, we then have to endure some discomfort and a couple of swift slaps to get us going on the path of our freedom and bliss.

May our ears be open to the soft voice in our hearts encouraging us to make the right choices today!

The most difficult lesson of all

Honor them, love them, help them, heal them, but above all else, Stefani, free them. Everyone, of course -     The Universe http://www.tut.com/ For me this is also a reminder not to cage myself, clip my own wings, but to give myself all the space I need to expand and be my best self. A constant learning process.

Lessons from my mother

I grew up with an unconventional mother- just me and her.  My dad died of cancer when I was seven;  she was just in her mid-thirties. She grieved him for much of the rest of her life. But that is another story.

She really tried her best to stay in the box while I was growing up. She taught at a technical boys’ high school for all the years I was at school, dressing relatively conventionally and wearing her long blonde hair in a bun. She always helped out with the art, costume design and make-up for school plays, and often sewed clothes for me. She was a very creative and exuberant person.

Somewhere around my late teens, she started to change. She became more and more eccentric and took to wearing long flowing clothes and wearing her hair in a long plait. She started taking part in and presenting self-awareness courses; and all sorts of weird and wonderful people starting showing up at our house saying they were sent by God. She gave up teaching completely and started making paper and unicorn art which she sold at craft markets.

We had never had money before, but now it was a scarcity. Friends coming to visit used to bring milk and sugar and somehow we got by from day to day. The housemaid left and our house started to resemble something out of Wuthering Heights. She literally gave up all sense of security and needless to say, the conservative Afrikaans family thought she was going completely bonkers, away with the fairies.

I remember one day trying to talk to her about these changes and how they were upsetting me. We were sitting on my bedroom floor and I was trying to explain to her how hard it was to see my mother change so much and not know why.  I felt so insecure and helpless.

My mother was very calm. She told me to really look at her. She sat opposite me and we looked deeply into each other’s eyes. She asked me then what I saw. Suddenly it dawned on me how happy she was. I realized that in all the time that I had known her, I had never seen her that joyful and fulfilled. I had only been looking on the outside,  just as my grandparents and her siblings had been looking on the outside.

She explained that she had finally been able to drop living up to all the expectations of the people around her, as she had done all her life, and was just following her own path and her own happiness from day to day. She no longer feared the judgements of the world, but lived according to her inner guide and light.

I never worried about my mother again,  as I realized that my love should give her wings and not hold her in the old patterns that I had grown up with.

I admire her immensely for her courage to set herself free, and live her life to the full.

For me, love is a huge infinite space. A space where I and those I love can soar free, play, and find our own true bliss. Then share that joy in intimate moments together. I thank my mother Hester, for this precious lesson.