Category: spirituality

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Along the Way

Back again.

This does feel like a chore. I seem to have slipped back into that demotivated state where I really don’t want to do anything. Maybe it’s the heat – doesn’t help, that’s for sure. That’s quite an odd phrase for me to use: ‘for sure’. Slipping back thirty-odd years into Dallas-speak – maybe it’s the heat – though it’s nowhere near as hot as it was there, but then nobody went outdoors at this time of year, they stayed inside and froze in the air-conditioning.

This morning, doing my exercises in the spare room with the window open, I felt stifled. Usually I have a high tolerance for heat, but this is getting even me down.

Taoism – must’ve been in a pretentious mood the day I mentioned it. How about Existentialism? Let’s throw that into the mix.

My yoga teacher said (a while ago now, must be, because we were in the Community Centre at the time, not the park), that the difference between fate and destiny is that Destiny is the true purpose of your life, what you should be doing if you allow everything to happen as intended (by whom? The Universe, or God, or whoever). But Fate is what happens to you anyway if you’re not following your Destiny. I liked that, I thought it was a nice distinction, even though I don’t believe there is such a thing as a ‘True Purpose’ to the Universe that underlies everything that happens. Why should that be? I suppose, to my ‘left brain’ (if we want to go back to that cliché) it’s quite clever, because it allows an ‘out’, as positive-thinking based philosophies often do: ‘Oh well, things didn’t turn out the way you wanted or expected, but that’s because you didn’t want it deeply enough, or you didn’t believe in it enough, or because the Universe has a different plan for you, which you can’t see right now, but one day you’ll see why it happened this way.’

Looking back over life, or history, it’s easy to see the Way that brought us here, the turning points, the (sometimes) tiny events that can trigger enormous consequences. We look back, and we construct a pattern (because that’s what humans do), and we can see that, well, that had to happen for this to be the way things are now. But we can’t know what would have happened if that point hadn’t turned, or had turned in a different direction – we can speculate, perhaps, but we can never know.

The example that just popped into my head wasn’t ‘tiny’ at the time – in fact, I’ve always thought of it as a tragedy, until just recently: the fact that my grandmother was widowed with five children at the age of forty – but if she hadn’t been, she wouldn’t have moved from Manchester to Cleethorpes, and my parents would never have met – pretty fundamental, from my point of view (and my children’s and grandchildren’s).

More along this thought path another day, perhaps.

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Non-attachment

What will I write about today? Therapy day. What will I talk about? I have two blog posts to read out, at least.

Is anything shifting inside my mind? If it is, it’s probably due to the lockdown, which has given me peace and space to be by myself. But it can’t last forever. How will I cope when I have to start engaging with the world again? Well, I have some control over that. When I first moved here I felt I needed to get out and make contact with other people. Now that seems less important. When I was a child I was told that shyness and introspection are things to be conquered, but these days I can see my self-containment as a gift. Am I getting any better at managing my response to and interactions with other people when they do happen? I suspect not, but I’m more comfortable about avoiding them, and less concerned about ‘missing out’. I can look back on memories of happy times with friends without feeling an urgent desire to repeat them – which is a good thing, I see that now. I can have my own happy times,

Trying to explain how I feel about that at this moment, I’m grasping for the right words. Contentment, maybe? No, too mealy-mouthed. Maturity, a feeling that I am on a mountain top, where I can look back and see my life and the things I’ve done, experiences I’ve had and people I have known laid out below me – no that sounds arrogant, which isn’t at all what I mean. Enormous peace that I can be who I am. Gratitude to all those people who have loved me and whom I have loved, forgiveness of those who’ve hurt me and of myself for hurting others, and knowledge that I no longer have to seek after love, but can be whole and by myself. Non-attachment, not detachment.

Well, what a wonderful epiphany for a Thursday morning – one which won’t last, I realise that. But it is there, and might return. I want to sit with this, be bathed in it, but also to keep writing, to complete this task, this daily commitment to myself, if for no other reason than that I can then get dressed and have my breakfast.

I’ve just expanded the sentence about being on a mountain top, and it’s brought back to me a quotation I first read almost fifty years ago, when I was a student and I have to admit I got it from the cover of a Strawbs album, but I think it was originally from Lao Tzu (a name which would have meant nothing to me then). I will have to look it up…

For once Google let me down, but I did manage to find the album on my shelf and scan it in – and lo and behold, it’s from the Buddha. Doesn’t quite say what I wanted though.

I expect Lao Tzu would have said it better.    

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The Ultimate Question

Just heard the national weather forecast which said more sunshine and a degree warmer everywhere today, but it’s pretty grey out there. My handy ‘Minutecast’ says ‘No precipitation for at least 120 minutes’, but ‘mostly cloudy’ and a high of 17 for the rest of the day. I spent some time yesterday sitting outside, but it was pretty chilly.

There I go, talking about the weather, clearly I’ve got nothing of importance to say – no change there. Not even any reflections on mirrors today (ooh, sorry! No I didn’t mean to say that, it was just the word that popped into my head. I wonder if that’s what happens though? That subconsciously my brain made that association and that’s why it gave me that word before I’d had time to think it through properly?)

Woke up thinking I had nothing to say, but then got to thinking (partly inspired by a response to Sunday’s post) about the Why Are We Here question. I’m sure I’ve said all this before – know I have, or at least thought it – but I’ll say it all again (maybe in a different form) because I haven’t got any other ideas today.

Do I believe we’re here for a reason? Yes, and that reason is cause and effect, ie we are here because our parents had sex and conceived us – maybe intentionally, maybe not, maybe they raised us, maybe they didn’t – some of us might have been conceived by IVF so the above is not strictly accurate, but whatever, it’s certainly true that we came from the conjunction of sperm and egg (unless there are any clones or aliens out there that on one’s told me about).

Do I believe we are here for a reason in the sense of having a purpose? No, except insofar as our parents chose to have us for their own reasons – to make them happy (a high risk expectation), complete the set, pass down the family business or whatever, or the evolutionary sense of passing on genes to another generation.

Am I an atheist? Yes. Do I believe in life after death? No. Does that bother me? No, because if I’m dead there won’t be a ‘me’ around to be bothered about it, or to regret the things I have or haven’t done, so why should I care now? Do I feel a responsibility towards my children? Yes, enough to have prevented me from attempting suicide in the past, and to know that I won’t in the future (as long as life is still physically bearable, but I’ve arranged for them to have power of attorney, so in extremis they can make their own decision about whether to keep me alive).

It’s amazing how little I can say in 500 words once I get going. Am I an existentialist? Am I a nihilist? As far as I understand those terms I would say: yes to the former, no to the latter.

Can I see myself ever changing these views? No.

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The Hermit (Part 3)

I’ve been to Tesco. It was going to be Sainsbury’s, but when I got there there was a barricade across the door. I looked though the window but couldn’t see anyone inside – this was just after 8 and they normally open at 7. So I crossed the road to Tesco (again). When I came back, Sainsbury’s was open. Bit late by then.

Walking home, I started fretting about what it will be like when things start opening up again – whenever that may be. Yesterday evening I joined in with a Zoom meditation session from the group I used to go to on Sunday evenings. On Sundays now they have a Crowdcast with guest speakers, and are getting 200-300 people from all over the world connecting (or whatever the word is). The difference between that and Zoom is that the ‘viewers’ are not visible but can contribute through an online chat area, so I like that because it’s nicely anonymous. I do join in properly with the meditation, but during the talks I quite often sit crocheting, as I would if I was watching telly. On Zoom, it’s possible not to share your video and audio, but it’s a bit awkward when there are only half a dozen people involved, and not only that, but mainly people I recognise from the regular group (and who would presumably recognise me).

Anyway, the guy leading it mentioned in the chat afterwards that he has been quite enjoying the lock down, but felt guilty admitting it – the lady who led the session last week said something similar – and then we were all putting our hands up and agreeing, and saying what a relief to hear someone else saying it.

Now, there could be a whole complex of reasons behind this. To put a negative spin on it, maybe people who join meditation groups – more specifically, online meditation groups – are all geeky, introverted loners who want to hide from the world and keep away from people in general. On the other hand, maybe they are thoughtful, contemplative individuals, interested in learning to detach themselves from the materialistic pleasures to which we are all addicted to a greater or lesser extent, on a path to self realisation and acceptance of the world as it is.

In the fifteen years I’ve been actively pursuing this path, I’ve met both sorts of people – some who are in conventional terms ‘damaged’ in some way and some who are intellectually fascinated by the life of the mind and disillusioned by the modern world, and many (like myself) who are a combination of the two. I mentioned to a friend the other day that it’s noticeable how many people I’ve met in meditation groups are educated to PhD level – all disciplines, but I think it reflects a certain kind of thoughtfulness and curiosity. On the other hand, there are also a fair number of recovering addicts.

This feels like the start of an interesting chain of thought, to which I’ll return.

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May Day

Today’s memory is from a year and a day after the previous one (a lot can happen in that time – in fairy tales, at any rate).

On the beach at sunrise with a smallish group of friends and friends-of-friends, one of them a Pagan celebrant who led us in a ceremony of welcome to the sun on May Day morning. I remember chanting, facing in the four directions (towards the sea, the land, the sun and… towards the pier? -it’s all I can think of in that direction!) There was also singing, djembe banging, some mandolin playing, probably dancing and definitely consumption of brandy supplied by her partner (not something I normally do at six in the morning, not even on May Day!) And breakfast in the Beach Café.

Thinking back, I realise I hardly ever see that group of people any more. When the world passed around the sun again, I had entered the year of my own personal self-isolation, of chemo and surgery and radiotherapy, and when I emerged from that into 2018, it seemed as though everyone’s life had changed, not just mine, the dance had shifted, we had all taken up new positions and our paths no longer intersected – except sometimes on Facebook, repository of friendships and social medium of choice for my generation.

That wasn’t the only memorable thing that happened that May Day, however. When I got home to the flat, I had an email from my ex husband, saying that he’d received and provisionally accepted an offer on the old family home; obviously my formal agreement was needed, but that was hardly in doubt. The beginning of the real end of that chapter of my life, a summer of driving up and down between here and there, clearing out everything, including the attic where so much of my past had accumulated; helping him initially to move into his new place in Bedford (and in the interim our son and his fiancée from their tiny studio flat in Guildford to a two-storey maisonette), and finally, in October, moving into this house, with one van of stuff transported professionally from the flat, and another trip for me up to Bedford, another rented van loaded and driven down by my daughter’s partner, another drive back southwards in my Micra with another terrified cat in a basket on the passenger seat.

If I’d known on that spring morning that it would be almost another six months before I was finally settled in my own home… well, I don’t know what I would have done. But it happened, all the dusty accumulation of the past, the physical stuff and the emotional clutter which had haunted me, all moved, all resolved, and here I was.

Maybe the stress of that year contributed to my body’s next bombshell – who knows? But I got through that too. And here I stand, and every day, whether May Day or any one of 365 others, the future still knocks on my door.

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The Crystal Space

I went to my first kundalini yoga class last night. When I walked in, the teacher said:

‘You must be Lynn!’

‘LinDA’ I corrected her. ‘My name’s Linda.’ I’ve always disliked beng called ‘Lynn’. When I was a kid, I hated it, because I knew lots of Lindas and lots of Lynns in my school, and, well, if I was called Lynn I wouldn’t expect anyone to call me Linda, would I? These days I’m a bit more tolerant, but I still prefer being called by my actual name.

‘Oh, okay, Linda’ she said, with emphasis on the second syllable, but a smile on her face. Then the next time she addressed me she called me ‘Lynn’, and continued to do so right through the class. I didn’t bother arguing, but at the end, one of the other ladies said: ‘Are you Lynn or Linda?’ and I said, ‘actually, it’s Linda’ and the teacher said: ‘I’m so sorry, I’ve been getting it wrong all the way through haven’t I? My memory’s terrible’ and I smiled and said: ‘that’s ok’ because what’s the point of getting arsey about it?  But I was glad the other lady had brought it up.

The class itself was a mixture of the familiar and unfamiliar but definitely worth doing. There was quite a bit of chanting – which I don’t mind – and breaks between postures, but the poses themselves were pretty tough and held for quite a long time (I always went for the easy versions). Also some of the breathing was different from what I’m used to and quite hard to get right. The meditation wasn’t as guided as I’d been expecting – I may have to find another group for that – but it was all nicely balanced and the 90 minutes went surprisingly quickly.

And I did my half hour this morning, as well as going to tai chi later (actually I need to go in a few minutes so probably won’t finish writing and posting this before I go.)

I think the kundalini is going to be good for me. The thing it reminds me of most of all is the original yoga classes I went to from 1990 onwards, back in Turvey when Laura was a baby. That was Iyengar, and we didn’t do any chanting, but there was a lot of emphasis on the breath and also a long relaxation at the end – and it was an hour and a half.

So, now back from tai chi, and supping tea with my friend Ali. Sometimes, you know, I think my life is pretty amazing. Other times, not so much – but why not? What makes the difference?

I was thinking last night about an idea that came out of the meditation group in Bedford, years ago when I was first separated from my husband – I wrote about it in my blog and will have to look it up to be sure, but it came from a mishearing of something said by the teacher. I think it was ‘the crystal space’ – I thought he said it, but when I spoke to him later he didn’t know what I was talking about. It seemed to be a space of possibilities, where everything was open and life could lead in any direction, but the whole thing was about liberation.