Alchemy For Your Soul

Writing

I have always been a writer in my heart and soul. I have known it. Words have been the thing that I use to craft my treasures – for myself and others. Words have shared the heights of life’s glory as well as expressed the dark nights of my soul.

I remember writing and illustrating cards for my mother – like most mothers, not a very useful critic but great for the ego – when I was young, six-ish. As you follow my story, you will learn that for me to remember that moment means it’s of great importance and value to me.

My writing, like my painting, is a combination of me, Me (the big me – the Spiritual self) and the Divine. There is a melding, a blending beyond my abilities yet for all that, it is still me.

Like all self-confessed writers I believe I have a book or two in me. They are in the process of birthing. And yes, like all birthings, it can be, and is, excruciating.  I will keep you up to date with my progress in that section of my workshop but in the meantime, I will share with you some snippets of my poetry (and if you think poetry is only poetry if it rhymes – please don’t email me to say that my work is not real poetry). You will also have to hang with me a while if you want to learn my humour. So that is Learning Lesson One – it was a joke! You can email me – but it won’t make any difference: not at least, about my poetry. Learning Lesson Two – you have to know some things about yourself and be true to the Knowing. Learning Lesson Three – revisit Learning Lesson Two – often!

Excerpt from my book, Walking the Backwards GOD: memoirs of a bottom feeder.

 PROBLEM (Or could it be Ponder? .......... Mmmmm.......)

 I was pondering this morning, about kids, life and people and how they are often a pain in the butt; you know, how many of them can be a real problem; drive you nuts.  You know the type I mean.  They never do what they say they’re going to and only ever have some lame excuse about why they didn’t do that thing you were relying so much on them doing. Now you’ve got so much extra work to do; or have to beg the indulgence of someone else ‘cause all of a sudden, you’re the one in the hot seat. It just isn’t fair.  After all, we, me, you; we’ve done the right thing.  Made the appointments for them, responded to contact they’ve initiated, prepared the material for their benefit. On and on.    This was me this morning.  Students!  You prepare lessons for them, even some fun things – in fact, work damn hard to get some interesting and engaging things packed into the magical 35 minutes allocated to thrust knowledge and wisdom upon them, only to find they couldn’t give a toss; and are only too happy to tell you this in full voice with the colourful addition of several expletives and the whooping and hollering support of their cohorts in crime.  You know the one I mean; the crime against society and all the good things we do to people for their own good.  These kids are then, I decided so heroically, a real problem.  This guy then, who hasn’t responded to my mail who had the audacity to write to me first, is unbelievable.  Why bother writing if you’re not then going to answer the call they’ve asked for?    So I pondered on this with a growing dread that life is getting all too hard and I am just not sure what the rules are anymore and, even if I did, would I really want to play any more?  This is getting deeper into the morass of life’s fundamental questions, isn’t it?    What came to me in the middle of my tirade to self but, naturally all about others, miraculously, somehow, and this IS so unfair, is that, if there is a problem, then I’m part of it as well.  Ugh! You can imagine how that thought flew.  A very large bird with a severe case of tummy turmoil overhead – directly overhead. I did not want to acknowledge that thought but nobly decided to run with it even though I know, deep, deep inside, that I am not, nor could ever be, part of the problem.  How do I then reconcile this thought – being a part of the problem – with the other one I started out with – they’re all wrong, a pain in the posterior: you know, what I said up there.   Now all of a sudden, I’m in the blare of bulb light.  It’s focusing on me and I’m not quite sure what to say to make me feel better about it all.  I have to acknowledge that if I accept the notion that the world, planet Earth, Mother Earth, Gaia is a living, breathing existing entity and that because we live on Her, in symbiotic association with Her, then we are all a part of Her – if I accept this, then the logic of it is that everything else and everyone else {animate and inanimate} is also a part of me.  That of itself, makes me part of it all.  It would really solve a whole lot of these problems that perplex me if others realized that as well and just stopped shooting themselves in the hip at every opportunity.  Doing unto others then becomes, doing unto oneself.  I don’t know how Christians or Muslims or Buddhists think about that, but it seems logical to me.  Actually, from the bit I’ve read, I think Buddhists do ‘get it.’   If we are being told then – by Society with the capital ‘S’ -  don’t come with the problem, come with a solution what solution am I able to offer about me being part of the problem.  Have you ever thought about this? Have you noticed that it is always about making someone else responsible for the problem – an otherness that relieves us all of the responsibility of claiming our rightful part in ‘it,’ whatever ‘it’ happens to be at any given time?   Getting back to my original quandary.  How am I part of the problem?  I need to understand this before even beginning the ginormous task of becoming a part of the solution.   With the letter-ignoring guy, I’m part of my own discomfort because I’ve put an expectation that this person is duty bound to continue on the thought he’s set up.  My expectation does not allow for change or hesitancy or other life-pathways and personality types.  I mark everyone by myself and what I’m like when I make/take an action.  The thought has gone into it BEFORE I do it.  I have not leapt in then considered whether one swimming lesson was enough to drag myself through this particular tributary of life. That is my way and I begin to recognize and accept that others choose their own swimming coaches and style of life response; their own particular pond. They do things very differently to me. And hey, that’s all good.    I need to tell myself that – a lot! See, part of the problem – the worry and bubbling anger, waste of time little tanty that I could vent with.  You know I was soooo close. I recognize my role and my driving force and feel a little bit better about being ignored.  Notice, only a little, because I am honest, and it really does cheese me right off to have tyre kickers wearing off the rubber of my wheels. Note to self:  Another thing I need to realize, kicking tyres probably hurts them more proportionately, than the amount of rubber they dislodge from my wheel.   As an educator, I need to take responsibility for how I come into my classroom, relate to the kids, sequence lessons, include their feedback – no before that, hold their trust so they feel secure enough to take the plunge out of their herd of group class wildebeest mentality into the flowing river of knowledge that is swirling treacherously as well as invitingly in front of them – totally out of their life-experience lessons in the tell and knock that many of us are maturing in; asking them to leap with gay abandon (don’t ever use that word in a classroom by the way as it will inevitable lead to at least a 10 minute huff-n-puff and innuendo, but you know what I mean) into this swirling, dark, mysterious and innately dangerous world at their feet.  Like the wildebeest, there is the elemental need for survival that tells them this is the way they must go but they don’t quite know why.  I’m certain mum and dad wildebeests don’t do any better a job passing this onto the youngsters than we human mum and dads do.  They know that they’ve somehow got to get into it, survive it, navigate it if they want to get on with the rest of their lives.  In fact, Society has made it the law and there is no choice – they must plunge.    This is what is faced every time a teacher walks into a classroom.  There’s a whole lot of other things in the mix but that is way too long and involved; for now I know they’re there and now I’ve reminded myself of them.  How to beat down the walls of opposition and resistance? Even that is reactive and reveals why I am part of the problem – because I too, am involved in Society.  {I have to say that so I feel better about myself.  See how it is all about justification?}  It’s not for me to bash down walls. Rather, it is for me to shine my light so invitingly, so positively and from the heart, that they break down their own walls and come on over.   That leads naturally, to “S” which works with this digression and evolvement of thought – but doesn’t suit the alphabetical arrangement of this book.  So be brave, be a devil. If you want to hit ‘shining the light’ flick forwards now; find your own place in the shaggy bodies as they hurl themselves into the raging torrent.

Blessed be.

(4/11/14)