69. After Henry.

It's been a while since I posted ... a lot of water under the bridge and a lot of stories to tell. But I think I’ll start with letting go of wounds.

Caroline Myss talks a lot about this in her books, Anatomy of the Spirit and Why People Don’t Heal and How They Can. In a nutshell, if you keep talking about something that has hurt you or an illness that affects how you live your life, your 'wound' has become an essential part of your character and you won’t want to let it go. She calls it 'Woundology.'

A lot of people get mad when they read something like that and there may even be some flouncing. But generally we don't flounce if we don't have buttons to be pushed.

Some people are pretty obvious about their wounds – the ones who tell you that they are vegans and hate animal cruelty the moment that they are introduced to you. And then there are the ones who tell you that they are incest victims or divorced. Or talk non-stop about their illness.

Don’t get me wrong; all these wounds are very, very real and horrible. It’s just that if they don’t dissolve; they become part of who you are. And they have a huge pay-off too. If you are ill, or have chronic fatigue (yes, I know that is a genuine illness) then you finally have an excuse not to do all the things you didn't want to do, or are afraid of either failing at, or succeeding at.

I’ve met many people who basically give out the message ‘you can’t ask me to do that because of my wound.’

I really didn’t think I had any wounds I was parading. Okay, there are always the stories about my relationship with my Mother which are usually pretty funny – oh!

Yep. They’re a wound. They were coming up far too often in my conversations. It’s still tempting to tell some of them because people would go, ‘No!’ or ‘my goodness!’ and there would be a lot of laughter. But the truth be told, they still carried a ‘poor me’ energy and they have to go. And in fact Mum and I have done some pretty good healing on the whole thing where she owned up to perhaps having made a few mistakes and I was able to tell her, entirely honestly, that I knew she had thrown me a softer ball than her mother threw to her.

The other wound that I know of, is all the stuff around Henry’s death. Which I won’t go into because I’ve been healing that wound. But I could...oh yes! Stories of ... well no, I won’t.

My bishop told me at the beginning of the life-enhancing disease that I hadn’t let go of Henry. I didn’t believe him. But then it came up in the Shamanic Journeying. I asked around and, apparently, I still mentioned him a lot.

(Yes, I know, I’m mentioning him now – but you aren’t getting a lot of details).

The Shaman and I talked it over and I suddenly realized that I had a whole photograph album of our married life, including our wedding. And nobody ever saw it. Apart from, maybe perhaps, my mother, there is now nobody left in the world who might even want to look at it.

Henry’s and my marriage and his death had a profound effect on me. But why had I got this huge album just doing nothing in the attic? I went to look at it and the thing that really struck me right in the heart, there and then, was that there were fewer than a dozen pictures in it that didn’t hurt me when I looked at them.

Even the wedding pictures reminded me of how my godfather said ‘you look like an even more demented Ophelia.’ I think it was probably a joke but... Dammit it was the late 80s and that hair was quite acceptable then!

I also remembered my wedding nerves; how I had to have a drink of champagne to go outside to get married on the beach (which should have been idyllic); how lonely I felt later that night when Henry was asleep in our room and I went to have a burger in paradise by the sea, on my own and wept. We got married in the Seychelles—just the two of us—and although it seemed like the right thing to do at the time, it was an incredibly lonely experience. For the rest of the holiday, I was bored and frantic as to why I felt so miserable. I covered it up pretty well, I think, as Henry was incredibly happy and bouncy the whole time—the pictures genuinely show that. And I was so unhappy by the time we got back to England that it took me a week to contact my parents and friends because I knew they would be full of enthusiasm and I simply wasn't.

The above paragraph is something I've never written about before, and only mentioned to a couple of very dear people in my life so I think that is not a repeated wound but the other end of the scale: a boil that needed lancing. I did come to love Henry again very much in the year we had but that really was a very rocky start.

So, all those memories were locked into this album, together with pictures taken when Henry was ill which also hurt. And pictures of me looking tremendously jolly when I knew my heart was aching.

So, I took out the pictures that didn’t hurt and burnt the whole of the rest of the album. Lion helped me do it, very lovingly, which was a real help.

It felt really quite amazingly liberating. Don’t worry, I still have pictures of Henry and me on the computer—but only the ones that make me happy.

And then I wrote the whole story out on a piece of tissue (précis is, luckily, my strong point) and wrapped it round one of my crystals. I went down to the river; greeted and honoured the river spirits; gave them a gift of silver and threw the stone into the river, asking them to take the whole wound away forever.

This is a Shamanic ritual (I think). Anyway, Suzi the Shaman advised me to do it. That too felt incredibly therapeutic.

There is still habit and ego to deal with and I must watch my words; but something big has gone—and it’s incredibly important that none of that past is any longer a part of my identity. It was 24 years ago. 

“The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.” L. P. Hartley, The Go Between.

Are there other wounds to go? Maybe. But they are on a time limit because Now and the Future are my country now.

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68. Oh My, The Food!

Okay, so I've got my wheatgrass shots and my vitamins and I'm doing my best to keep to a ultra-healthy diet but even the fear of the ego will allow a festival celebration. In fact, despite the early panic when we got to Cyprus, it (and I) were so happy to let go for the day.

The Christening feast was half-way across the island at a magnificent beach restaurant called Kalamies where we were thrilled to be sitting with Tim and Natasha and Ariadne and surrounded by Greek folk who know exactly how to have fun. And the food just kept coming...

I love Greek food particularly kleftiko and I ate for England. The only 'shame' was no fish on this particular menu but I even had a slice of chocolate cake. Oh boy! It's been a while...

There were gifts for the guests, flowers everywhere—and we got to take some back to the hotel which was lovely—and the beach was golden sands with a bright blue sea. Quite a difference from Dartmoor.

I spent most of pudding time sitting on the beach, glorying in the sunshine and the water and so incredibly grateful that I got here; incredibly grateful for Lion's constant support and incredibly grateful for the love that has surrounded me on this journey.

We drove away at about 4pm but next day was a feast day too. A picnic on Konnos beach at Ayia Napa with just Tim, Natasha, Ariadne and a few close friends. We were not to worry about bringing food so we didn't and the fare was great big bread rolls full of tuna and chicken and both savoury and sweet pastries.

I was hungry, so I ate 'em and appreciated them. Yummy. And I thought how presumptive it was of me to have assumed there'd be salad or something not quite so glutinous. I've begun to get used to taking my own food on journeys because there's really nothing out there which is gluten-free or ultra-healthy. Even the salads at M&S etc need a good examining for contents if you're on a restricted diet.

But I did crave my salads and vegetables. And out here I've grown an addiction for fresh orange juice even though I've brought my vitamin C powder. One day of feasting was great; two days perhaps not so good. However, the beach was lovely, the company excellent and the sunshine, glorious.

It's always worth remembering two of my favourite teachings of Jesus:

"It's not what goes into the mouth of a person that defiles them, it's what comes out of their mouth that defiles them" Matt 15:11.

And

"First clean the inside of the plate and the cup and then the outside will be clean" Matt 23:26.

Diet alone won't cure a life-enhancing dis-ease. Yes, it can stop it and even reverse the symptoms but you have to keep to that diet forever unless you get to the root cause and heal that. If that diet stops you from living in your deepest heart and soul, where is the benefit in that?

I had another worry-ego-chunter about not having chemotherapy the day after the feasts because I had a bout of physical exhaustion that looked a bit like a relapse. And because when anyone finds out about the dis-ease that is always the first thing they head for: "Are you having treatment?" Whenever I have a worry-ego-chunter, my energy drops existentially but, this time, my guidance was having none of it.

"God's chemotherapy is Divine Love. You are receiving Divine chemotherapy. Shut up."

Yes. That's good enough for me.

How do I become Divine Love? It's inherent; you just have to drop the barriers against it and that's the whole of this journey. For me, it's in the gratitude—and in the blessing. The blessing of everywhere I go and everything and person, creature and spirit that I encounter. And blessing you, reading this right now.

Thank you.

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68. Cyprus Christening

I'm not a maternal kind of person. I'd have puppies like a shot but I've never had a child of my own.

Lion has two grown-up children, Chris and Karen. Their mother died when they were in their teens (I can only imagine the horror of that) and we have a good relationship in a peaceful, slightly distant kind of way. Neither Lion nor I come from cuddly got-to-keep-in-contact families but the bond is still there.

When I told my brother about the diagnosis, he—the hotshot international lawyer who I see about twice a year and who had, just a moment before, been slightly testy at my insistence on talking with him on the phone—said 'shall I come? Shall I come now?' He was just about to go into a high-pressure meeting 200 miles away at the time but all the veneer just falls off at the vital moment.

But Tim is our son ... and Ariadne is our grand daughter. Not a speck of blood contact but Tim's face when he saw us and his open arms to embrace us was what it must be like to have 'real' children.  And Natasha, his wife, acknowledges us as parents/grandparents as well. Tim's blood mother wasn't there—I didn't know if she would be and was quite prepared to take a back seat if necessary. His father, as mentioned previously, was murdered in 2006. They had been divorced since Tim was two years old.

The Christening, in the tiny but beautiful St. Paul's Anglican Cathedral (which doubles as church for several other denominations nowadays too which I think is a very good idea), was short and lovely. Just the Baptism with the minister explaining to the agnostics what was going on, including the fact that the font is by the church door as it is welcoming the child into the community.

The ceremony included the traditional 'renounce the devil' aspects which modern people find so hard. Again, for the mystic, it's fairly simple; it's about dealing with the demons of the psyche inside so that you can be a clear channel for the spiritual guidance of your Godchild. Ariadne's Godparents are young and I don't know what level of faith they have but it was interesting that Tim came up to me afterwards and said, 'When I was a child I would go and hide in one of the dog kennels (his mum is a breeder) and phone my Dad in the dark to ask him all sorts of philosophical questions. I am so happy that Ariadne will be able to do that with you.'

The other significance, for me, was that this Baptism—the recognising of a new life in the world and in the Christ consciousness—was on my birthday. Three hundred and sixty two days after I found the first lump. It does seem like a rebirth; a new responsibility and a new start. This day was a day to be born again.

I don't usually write about the signs and portents and all that that I get but I'll risk it this time. I went up to the altar after the ceremony while photos were being taken and prayed for everyone there and for the church and all who come to it. And I asked that I might live until Ariadne's 21st birthday and be a source of spiritual guidance to her should she ask for, and need it.

Very clearly, I got '25 years.' 

Thank God for waterproof mascara.

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67. Rocking the Ego.

We arrived safe and sound in Cyprus in the mid afternoon and were picked up at the airport by the car hire people. While Lion was sorting out the paperwork, I had a mild panic attack.

You see I've never been abroad with this body before; I didn't know how it would respond. I wasn't going to do any driving and that's unusual for me and felt disempowering to the ego. I'm the woman who travelled all around China with her Dad in thee 1980s and barely turned a hair at staying in hotels where the only loo was two floors down and the culture was challenging the say the least.

And I have a neck that does not look normal—and my ego hated the idea of people staring at me. Yes, I've got a lovely haircut from Ivan so that the hair naturally flows around that part of my neck but in wind (and Cyprus has wind) it's painfully exposed.

I had been doing so much inner work on feeling beautiful again and, guess what, another challenge. Yes, I know it's all about inner beauty but it's also about re-training the ego. Middle aged women are fairly invisible a lot of the time and it had been such a wonderful surprise when I became slim again after so many years to find that I turned heads like I used to as a 30-year-old. The heads were in their sixties but fortunately that doesn't matter when you get older.

There was also the ego's fear around food. No juices for a week, unknown foods and precious little hope of any gluten-free bread. Even on a healing journey we get locked into the 'you must do this and this and this' and I am very careful about what I eat. With, effectively, a week off, ego tried to fret because its safety net had gone. Friends, of course, said 'it will do you good to eat what you like and have fun' and they're right. But...

By the time we were at the hotel I felt better and within 24 hours my ego had settled in and realised that no one was going to point and shout like in Invasion of the Bodysnatchers and even though the salads were strangely disappointing, they did at least exist. And oh, the sunshine! And oh, the sea! It's only a year since we had a beach holiday but nonetheless it was so wonderful to be warm and to paddle and to sit on the sand.

(WBX warning). I sat on the beach the first evening and greeted Aphrodite, the Goddess of this island and asked for blessings on all the land, its creatures, its people and its spirits. I don't have the slightest problem with speaking to ancient Gods. They are archetypes—each one is represented by one of the names of God in the Hebrew Testament. One of the brilliant things about Judaism and Christianity is that they brought the pantheons together, recognising one over-Divinity containing different aspects to make it simpler and less dangerous for us.

In Christianity, for instance there is Trinity—Father, Son and Holy Ghost but also Mary the Divine Mother and all the stories of Christ in the Gospels. Jesus' life and those he meets and works with are beautiful demonstrations of the different aspects of Divinity and how they can be balanced or out of balance. Through understanding the Hebrew and New Testaments in a mystical context we can see those 'Gods' in us and assess whether they are positive or negative influences.

The commandment 'thou shalt have no other Gods before me' is advice to stick with the whole of the Divine as your first port of call. It doesn't say that there are no other Gods.

If you mess around with Gods you get in trouble because a single God is out of balance with the whole. Yes, you may need the energy of one to pull you back from imbalance at times but generally they're best not messed with.

However, it's only polite to greet and bless them (Gods don't just vanish because we stop believing in them—read Douglas Adams' The Long Dark Teatime of the Soul for more on that. And they're pretty prevalent in our movie and comic culture too). The blessing is the blessing of the most Holy One so you are making it quite clear where you stand. I called for blessing on all the Greek Gods but led with Aphrodite because it's her island. Aphrodite appeared—or at least I imagined she did—to see what this little human being who had blessed her and her companions was about.

Gods don't chat. Angels don't chat either. Gods are angelic archetypes and completely ruthless when they need to be. But you can usually tell if you're speaking with something from another reality when the words (that you hear in your head) are totally unexpected.

Aphrodite asked what I wanted in return for the blessing. I said 'nothing', she said 'pah' so I said 'healing, in the name of the Most Holy One, but I don't think that's your provenance for me.'

She said 'it will cost you blood' and vanished. And Pallas Athene was there instead. Yes, I know, I know, but that's what seemed to be going on and Athene is the aspect of the One God with which I am working right now—the martial 'let's cut out the crap' attribute. Athene and I had a short talk—under the provenance of the Most Holy One—and made an agreement but it was still going to cost blood.

Two days later, five minutes before going into the church for Ariadne's christening, I had a totally spontaneous nose-bleed. The Goddess got her blood. She will keep her end of the bargain.

NB. On one day, we were walking on the beach by the hotel and a bronzed man in just swimming shorts appeared about 50 yards in front of us. He had only one arm. The other had been amputated at the shoulder. I looked at him just getting on with his life and dealing with the fact that people would always look at him twice and surmise what might have happened to him ... and received another powerful lesson in humility.

I never saw him again.

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66. Cyprus

Tomorrow we are heading off to Birmingham, taking my Mum home after her week's visit, and the following morning we head off to Cyprus.

We wouldn't be going without your kind generosity and I do so very much appreciate it. We both desperately need a holiday and some sun ... and to be visiting Tim for the first time since he and Anastasia moved to Cyprus two years ago is such a treat. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

It seems so significant that a year minus two days since I found the first bump, we are going to a Christening of a much-loved son's daughter. Ariadne's Christening is on my birthday, in the cathedral in Nicosia.

Tim's father, Jon, was Lion's best friend for 18 years. He was murdered in 2006 saving the life of an elderly lady who was being attacked in their block of flats in Croydon. Lion and Tim had met at Jon's second wedding and known each other off and on through more than a decade. But I first met Tim when we picked him him at Kings Cross station in London four days after Jon died. He had taken the train from his home in Edinburgh and we had driven down from Worcestershire to pick him up and take him to identify his father's body.

This tall red-headed lad came out of the station and smiled nervously at us and climbed into the back of our car where Puzzle, our 11-year-old beagle (an experienced mother), pressed her warm furry body against him and, when he opened his arms to her, climbed on his lap to love him.

He held her with his head buried in her fur all the way to Croydon and, when he had stood with me for a moment looking through the glass at his father's body, said 'yes, that's him,' he walked out, he took her lead from Lion, who was waiting outside, and walked her round the block.

He stayed that night at the home of another friend of Jon's just half an hour from his Dad's home, David got him comfortingly drunk on good wine and food and put him to bed. Lion and I stayed in Jon's flat (which Lion and he had shared in earlier days) and searched for his will. As we hoped, it left everything to Tim.

For two days, we talked with police, sorted stuff out and made plans and by then, Tim and I loved each other. Maybe it was the war spirit but I have no physical child of my own but if I had, it would have been Tim. Karma perhaps—past-life stuff—I don't know. But his Christmas cards read 'Mum and Dad no. 2'

We were with him at the Old Bailey as the man who had killed his father sat in the dock, we talked of the whys and wherefores and we loved his visits at Christmas and New Year.  And when he and Natasha got together he wanted us to meet her before they flew off for their new life together.

So, on 26th of April I will hold the grand daughter I never thought I would have in my arms and I will give her my grandmother's pearls with a note telling her their provenance and how Margery Hayward met George Crosbie when a Zeppelin came down in Suffolk at the end of the First World War. He was guarding it and she rode out on her bicycle with a raincoat over her nightdress to see what on earth had happened that had lit up the sky in flames.

They say that blood is thicker than water but soul-connections are stronger even than that.

N.B. This isn't what I intended to write at all this evening—but there you go. I was going to write about the love and healing and forgiveness between my mother this week. But that will have to wait for another day.

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65. On Death and Resurrection

It was my friend Rachel who taught me the metaphysical meaning of the Easter story. When you think about it, it's incredibly simple but, being me, I'll drag it out a bit and shove in a couple of stories.

It's incredibly relevant to me because a life-enhancing disease means that something must and will die. There is no getting around that part of it.

The story is that Jesus is betrayed by Judas, is tried, crucified, dies and resurrects. Christianity teaches that he died for our sins. We should be very grateful for that, feel appropriately guilty, not play with ourselves under the bedclothes and thank Grandma nicely for the gifts she gave us that we really, really didn't want.

And we are asked to believe in an all-loving God who would cheerfully send His only-begotten son to such a horrible death. Tough one that. After all, if that's what God would do to his own child, what would He do to us? And that leads to the last judgement, to purgatory and hell.

'My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?' cries Jesus on the cross in the Gospels of Matthew and Mark.

'Father, forgive them,' says Jesus in the Gospel of Luke.

'It is done,' says Jesus in the Gospel of John.

Kabbalah taught me that the symbolism of numbers is inherent within the stories which became the Bible and that the four levels of creation is an enduring and important pattern. Four elements: Earth, Water, Air and Fire, four courts in the Temple, four Gospels in the New Testament. There's more to it than that but, in a nutshell, Earth represents the physical world, water the psyche and soul, air the spirit and fire the Divine.

Our bodies scream when they are hurt. So do our psyches. But our spirits see deeper into the mystery and know that there is a greater magic afoot. The others are nearly always just doing the best they can with the level of understanding that they have and following their training and the social mores of the world. And they are all our reflections; they are in our lives for a purpose.

Our Divinity sees the whole picture from beginning to end and totally accepts what is, seeing it as perfect.

In the physical and psychological we focus on the suffering. I always thought Deepak Chopra made a very good point when he said 'I'm not asking you to give up your pain—just your suffering.' Pain is. Suffering is optional.

My first husband died once; in my heart and mind I made him die 10,000 times. My second husband left me once; in my heart and mind I made him leave me 1000 times. It's natural to go over the pain for a while but it's not natural to re-empower it. There's a North American Indian tradition that you may tell your story of woe three times only. After that, you start to embed it in your soul. A developed soul, in touch with spirit, feels pain but does not suffer.

So, Jesus, in Matthew (body) and Mark (psyche) is expressing the pain and suffering of a mortal man. In Luke (spirit) he is out of the suffering and into the level of understanding and compassion. In John (divinity) the emotional level is pretty much unimportant—he's completed the most difficult part of the job he came to do and can let go and move on.

For me (for us?) that's the story of what it's like when life goes 'wrong' whether it's bereavement, divorce, losing your job or facing a difficult diagnosis. We can yell and rant and blame and suffer as much as we like—and we do. Our wounds become a long-lasting part of who we are; how we relate to others ('oh they can't possibly understand what I'm going through' or 'he/she really gets me'). We compare wounds in building relationships and often even require our friends to maintain their wounds so we all have a lovely excuse not to develop and move on. (Caroline Myss is brilliant on this subject).

I discovered very swiftly what kind of temptation a life-enhancing disease gives you. For the first time for me it was entirely possible to say 'no, I won't do that' without having to give any excuse. People would just say, 'well, it's understandable given what she's going through.'  I suddenly saw all the manipulations and control mechanisms that 'suffering' gives to those who want that kind of power. Hopefully I haven't succumbed to them because, once you do, it's going to be very hard to surrender that dis-ease and its benefits. The ego loves a bit of power and control.

The healing is about re-discovering the soul and working in spirit. No matter what anyone has allegedly done to me over the years, it's time to let go of it and move on. To forgive is rarely for the other person, it's to let go of the poison in us. To forgive ourselves is even more important.

In Luke, Jesus talks with the two thieves on the cross. One is unrepentant—wants to be set free without atoning (at-one-ing) for what he has done. The second understands that this is cause and effect for him but not for Jesus, who is innocent. It is to the second one that Jesus says 'today you will be with me in paradise.'

It's all about letting go. Once you let go, then the problem is solved. That's true whether the outcome is life or death. Because, as Rachel taught me, it's not the crucifixion that matters, it's the dying. Once you die to the problem, then resurrection is a done deal.

You die and you resurrect. You let go and let God. You release the suffering and you transform.

That, for me, is the real message of Easter. Am I doing it? More and more each day, each blessed day on this beautiful earth. Is it healing me? Absolutely.

It's also worth noting that Jesus was on the cross for six hours. That's all. I'm sure it was more than enough but it's less time than the average woman is in labour. We've kept him on the cross for 2000 years.

Yes, his suffering makes us believe that he understands our wounds. But his death and resurrection shows us that we can heal them. It will probably take considerably more than six hours but that's the challenge of true Christianity. How long before we can truly forgive and move on?

G. K. Chesterton said, 'Christianity has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and not tried at all.'

It took a life-enhancing disease for me to take the time and energy to really get into this forgiveness lark. I'd played around with it and thought I was doing okay, but when you get down and dirty, it is truly amazing and liberating. My friend Adam-who's-Jewish said 'Maggy, this is your crucifixion. You can do it.' Yes I can. And what an incredible journey it is.

Oh—and God doesn't need to forgive us or them. God loves us unconditionally. But we need to believe that we are forgiven to feel set free. If we forgive ourselves and others, it opens the door to that all-embracing love.

How do we forgive? Well the simplest method is the ho'oponopono I mentioned in the previous thread. It's not swift and it works subtly but it's very effective. Say the mantra 5,000+ times a day. Ah, yes ... it does need commitment. The lovely thing is that it works without telling you what it's working on. You'll just suddenly find that a thought that used to hurt doesn't any more. It's gone.

In closing, forgiveness does not mean to condone the cruelties of others. Not at all. It means to set our hearts free of the ongoing suffering. As my friend Janet-the-Methodist said, 'forgive by all means. That doesn't mean you let them get away with it.'

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64. Blessing the Dust, a poem by Jan Richardson.

All those days
you felt like dust,
like dirt,
as if all you had to do
was turn your face
toward the wind
and be scattered
to the four corners
or swept away
by the smallest breath
as insubstantial—
Did you not know
what the Holy One
can do with dust?
This is the day
we freely say
we are scorched.
This is the hour
we are marked
by what has made it
through the burning.
This is the moment
we ask for the blessing
that lives within
the ancient ashes,
that makes its home
inside the soil of
this sacred earth.
So let us be marked
not for sorrow.
And let us be marked
not for shame.
Let us be marked
not for false humility
or for thinking
we are less
than we are
but for claiming
what God can do
within the dust,
within the dirt,
within the stuff
of which the world
is made,
and the stars that blaze
in our bones,
and the galaxies that spiral
inside the smudge
we bear.

Jan Richardson

With thanks to Rev. Harriet Every.

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