Sunday 21 October 2007

Not the same woman today......

I realise today that I wasn't completely honest in what I wrote in yesterdays blog. I didn't write just how upset and angry I was about had what happened at my assisting agreement yesterday. I felt so aggrieved and hard done by. I was totally in the right and everything else that happened was so unfair to me.


I went to watch the Rugby with friends last night and it didn't take me long to realise that I live into a world I want to see not the world as it really is. I say this because in the last blog I wrote about the power that is present when minds think the same. I wanted to be part of that power. Instead what I came into was a group of people some of whom were supporting England and some were supporting South Africa. Instead of unity there was tension especially from a group of New Zealand people who were supporting South Africa. I found myself thinking 'if your own home team is out why don't you then support the country that is giving you a job and a roof over your head (not my inner voice, definitely my personality) and as I thought this I was aware of some resentment. This was really interesting.


We settled down to watch the game. There was a guy a little way away from me and I could hear his conversation as he was chatting to the guys. He was funny and I found myself laughing. At one point I looked over and saw he was looking at me. I realised in that instant that I wanted more than anything to just chat without the baggage of knowing someone for a long time, to flirt without there being anything more to it. I knew then that the events of Thursday night had hurt me more than I had acknowledged to myself. This was me trying to reassure myself that I was attractive to other guys. I was weighing up the possibilities for speaking to him when he did something that I was amazed about and extremely grateful for.


What I didn't know was that sitting beside my friend was his wife. Then I heard him saying 'are we going to eat after this' and I saw the woman beside my friend smile over. When I looked back I saw it was at him. I knew then that the woman sitting beside my friend was his partner and I had such great respect for him for getting the message across. It saved potential embarassment as I wouldn't have known that they were together, I may have started chatting and she was too far away to join in the conversation. I was immensely grateful to him for getting the message across with no words. After a few minutes he came and sat next to his wife and then we all chatted about the rugby. I was right in my initial assessment that he was a lovely guy. As a rule I am so careful about how much I chat to the boyfriends/husbands of my friends.


The end result of the rugby was so depressing that when it was over none of us felt like staying out drinking. I came home, had a bath and went to bed. I was determined to sleep until I woke today. I woke naturally at 6.30am and debated about getting up to meditate. Lying in bed looking out of my window at the multi-coloured leaves against the sky I was so relaxed and content. I knew what would happen if I got out to meditate, I would have 'thought assault' so I decided not to. I lay there and the memory of what had happened at my assisting agreement came back and I saw immediately how I was totally responsible for the breakdown of the communication that had happened. I saw too how angry I was. I saw with perfect clarity how I hadn't been patient enough with the lady, explored with her what has happening for her, take the time to really be with where she was in her life, in short I hadn't created a background of relatedness. I had heard the importance of creating this background of relatedness but I didn't understand what it meant. Now I had pefect clarity. I saw too how strong my resistance was around this breakdown in that none of what I could see this morning I could see when I came home yesterday evening. Yesterday I couldn't get beyond hurt and upset even though I tried to put a nice gloss on it in yesterday's blog entry, I saw that I was more resistant to the message that was trying to be given to me by my supervisor than I thought I was.


I got up and showered and then had a thought about going to mass. This wasn't the authoritative inner voice, it was me mulling over the possibility. Before I joined the gym I used go most Sundays to 11am mass. Not because I like religion I don't. But there is something about the tones of the church organ that was always calming for me. I was also meeting a friend for lunch so the timing would be perfect. I got ready and walked to the church. The walk took me through the park and as always I became lost in the beauty that is nature. I arrived in time for mass and found a pew. I was struck by how many people I remembered from when I used to go. This woman came in who I remembered had always dressed like she was on a fashion catwalk and to my amazement she was exactly the same. She made a bee-line for the row I was in and I moved over to let her in. I was musing on why she put so much effort into her dress for mass and then had this thought 'does she dress this elegantly for God' and as I thought this I felt something come over me that I cannot put into words.


I picked up the manual of hymns to see if I knew any that were on the notice board. I used to love doing this because if I knew any from my days in the catholic boarding school it was great. I realised how long I have been away because none of the hymns were familiar. The organ began and everyone stood up. I began to sing. I think if the woman in the pew beside me knew that I sang like a nightingale with sore throat she would have sat somewhere else. The mass began and when it came to the readings this woman who was dressed so elegantly stood up and sashayed up to the altar. Hm...maybe the elegance was not for God after all!


I was reading a sentence in the responsorial psalm. It said 'at your right side he stands'. This got me thinking 'why the right side, why not the left side'. Then I was astonished when I realised that the creed which is said every Sunday contains the words 'He is seated at the right hand of the Father'. Why is it always the right? This set me off on a train of thought about whether or not the 'right side' refers to the right side of the brain. If it was random why is there no mention of the left side? The force of this insight took my breath away and in that instant I knew that there is some secret hidden in the right side of the brain. I know it, I just can't prove it. These are only two references to the 'right' but I would love to have time to go through the bible and see if there are any more references. Why do I always come back to the brain. I feel that this kingdom the human kingdom has left brain consciousness. The shift to the next kingdom will involve the shifting of the consciousness from the left brain to the right. As a result science will take a different turn and there will be discoveries which will be different to those that have been revealed. I have such a strong feeling about this. I feel that there are going to be significant discoveries concerning the right side of the brain.

I met my friend for lunch which was lovely. He has been a friend since childhood and I think knows me better than anyone else. I always feel so relaxed when we meet up. It's the comfort that comes because I know that he completely accepts me for who and what I am. I consider myself so lucky to have known him for all the time that I have.

We said goodbye and I walked home through the park. The day was just so spectacularly beautiful and I felt great peace and calm. Once at home though I began to shiver and had to turn on a heater as well as the central heating. I hope I'm not coming down with something. I can't believe that it's Monday again tomorrow. I have a faintly foreboding feeling about this week. There's such a lot of turmoil around me and in me at the moment that I don't think is going to go away very soon. All I have to do is to remain steady in the face of it all. I didn't do this very well last week.....let's see what this week brings....

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

It's "he is seated at the right side" simply because most people are right handed, and this has created a prejudice in favour of those that are right handed and against those that are left handed. If you want an example, think about the origins of the words "dextrous" and "sinister".

Anonymous said...

Running through your blog is a persistent thread: you try to be completely honest about yourself, but you often are not, and correct your record in subsequent entries. I think the problem is this: your desire to be what you think is a better person clouds your ability to see, or describe, yourself as you are. Being honest with yourself isn't easy, but if you aren't able to do that, then how can you present "the truth" to others through your blog?

As Shakespeare put it: "This above all: to thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man."

Margaret Dempsey said...

What a great comment, thank you so much. It makes getting up to write my blog at 4.30am so worthwhile. You have a knack of sending me a comment when there is something nagging at me that I don't write about.

What was nagging at me is precisely what you have pointed out. That is the the correcting of myself that I do when I see something I didn't see in an earlier blog entry. I have also been thinking about this and how much confidence it inspires in those who are reading this blog when this is the kind of thing that happens. I do this to show the process of how resistance can prevent us from seeing things as they really are. It is only when the resistance lessens that a truer picture can emerge. For me this is often an overnight occurence where I wake the next day and see immediately what it was that I was resisting.

I really liked the quote from Shakespeare which is also in line with what Socrates said when he said 'know thyself'. You are right that it's not easy to be honest with myself because there is much hidden from my view. This blog is a record of a process of transformation. The nature of transformation is such that it shifts and expands consciousness. So the way things are seen one day is not the same as another. I have never claimed to present my truth as THE TRUTH. I wouldn't dare. I have always been clear that what I present are views, opinions that can be taken or left. There is Truth contained in the ancient scriptures. It would be relatively easy for me to take a sentence from one or other of these scriptures and write around that. But would that be of any real benefit to anyone. It would only be repeating what is already out there and available.

That would be much safer for me than what I have chosen to do which is to leave a personal record of how a journey transforms from the human to the spiritual. It is a challenging blog. I admit that. Both for me writing it and I'm sure for some reading it. It gets to the heart of what is blocking our spiritual essence from emerging which is why there is resistance to it. I am intrigued why out of all the blog entries it is this one which has triggered the comment.

If someone had told me that in 2007 I would be writing this kind of blog on the internet I would have laughed at them. All I have ever wanted to do is to belong and not stand out. For years I studied spiritual literature quietly and without having any idea of what was available. In 1998 I had an experience after which life flowed and was in harmony and balance. In 2002 to try to make sense of this experience I wrote to a friend of my Reiki master. A man who is a medium and clairvoyant. Something told me not to see him in person but to write a letter. This is what I did. I explained about my background of studying Buddhism for many years, then giving everything up when I returned from India and then this experience which shifted and changed everything for me. I don't have the contents of the letter to hand but in it he spoke about 'the choice I have to share what I know'. I will dig out the contents of the tape he sent me back in response to the letter and put a little on a future blog entry.

It is this message together with the dream I sometimes off of meeting a person who is looking at me very sadly saying 'you knew what you had and you wouldn't share it because you were afraid. Every time I have this dream I wake up and my resolve for this not to happen becomes stronger. I take very seriously the axiom 'to thine own self be true'. This is why some of the blog entries can appear inconsistent. It is me being completely true to myself. This means going against my own ego that says 'don't go back on yourself, you'll look stupid' ' to be authentic and reveal what had been hidden from my view in one blog in another.

Thank you so much for this comment. It has really focused my mind.