Greed

I have just spent a lovely week holidaying in Cyprus.  It was an all-inclusive deal  -  as much food as you could eat and as much alcohol as you could drink. 

What amazed me was the ability of some people to take “all-you-can-eat” literally and ate and drank as much as they could during waking hours.

But it wasn’t the amount that some people can consume that got to me; it was the waste.  Some people gathered plates piled high with food, and not just one plate at a time – the table was filled with them.  Food was shovelled in at such an alarming rate that I am sure the flavours never had a chance to shine through and be savoured.  But as stomachs rapidly filled plates piled high were left untouched and so much food was thrown away.

All over the world children are dying from starvation; in many countries people are suffering from malnutrition; in our own country the elderly living on a pension can’t afford to buy anything other than the basics; outside the hotel cats and dogs were begging and fighting for scraps;  all this whilst so much food is thrown away. 

Now, I do not begrudge anyone eating and drinking what they enjoy and can manage and, believe me, I do enjoy my food as much as the next person.  But I do get upset when people take so much and have no intention of eating it all.  Why not just take one plate of food and then get more if needed – or is that too simple?

I do apologise for my little rant, but it really got to me during my week away.

As Mahatma Gandhi once said “Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's needs, but not every man's greed.”

Dad's Garden

For a long while I needed to do something with an area of the garden that had become a bit overgrown and hard to control.  It was an area that Dad had helped to create many years ago when he was a younger and fitter man, so I didn’t want to dig up the area completely.

I had the idea to turn it into my own Zen Garden, something peaceful and calming and that would still remind me of Dad, so we set about clearing the area.  I had a rough idea what I wanted to achieve so off we went to the local garden centre and bought stones, gravel, pots and plants.  While I was there I saw a beautiful round, solid stone globe that reminded me a little of the planet Saturn.  It cost a fortune so I left it where it was.

Back home with my goodies and we set about laying a liner first of all to help with weed control; on top of the liner we spread Portland Stone chips which glowed white in the warm sunshine; we set random flat stepping stones of slate and at the end of the pathway we added a Buddha; three black square pots planted with blue grass were added – the area was coming together nicely.

The whole time we worked in the garden a beautiful small white butterfly with a blue centre flitted around the garden.  No sooner had it moved away it was back, it seemed it couldn’t quite leave us.  Now, butterflies are quite significant for us and Dad and I’m sure he wouldn’t mind me sharing this with you.  Dad had a way with getting his words wrong and mis-pronouncing them.  A few years ago, during one of his visits, we were sitting in the garden and talking about family things.  As Dad mis-pronouced the word hereditary, coming out as heri-dit-ory, a butterfly flew quite close to us.  My friend was stunned, thinking that Dad knew the name of the butterfly and we’ve laughed for years about this whenever we saw a butterfly.  So on this particular afternoon it was lovely to have the "heriditory" with us, we had Dad’s approval of the new garden.

Of course, the garden was lovely but not quite finished.  So I went back and bought the big stone – Dad’s stone in Dad’s garden.

Meditation Teacher Course

Yesterday was the first day of my Meditation Teacher  Training course and what a great day it turned out to be.  The part I want to share with you is one of the meditations that we did together.

Now, I have been asking for quite a while for my psychic abilities to increase so that I can be more sure of what I’m seeing, hearing, feeling, etc.  I know it’s all tied up with trust but I just think that if everything became clearer I would feel more confident.

For one of our meditations yesterday our tutor used Diana Cooper’s Wisdom Cards.  We all drew a card, read the message and then placed the card on our lap and meditated on the affirmation at the bottom.

The card I drew was Clarity.  Hmmmm, that’s pretty spot on.  So I meditated on the affirmation “my mind is as sharp and clear as a diamond” and immediately I could feel several of my guides drawing closer to me.  A pressure began to build over my third eye and the image of an eye appeared.  It wasn’t clear, but it was there and I so wanted to go into the centre of the eye.  But the meditation was a short one and we were all brought back.  Damn, it was over too soon!

But I had drawn the Clarity card and my intuition was telling me that clarity would be mine with regular meditation.  I think the lesson I learned there was that if you want something, then you have to put the work in to achieve it.

Spiritual Development Group Number 2

Last night was our second Spiritual Development Group and we knew that we had to follow the same format as last month.

We settled around our camp fire and went through our usual routine of opening up and asking for protection.  Immediately our Gladiator appeared, wearing a gold coloured helmet and body armour, a red skirt and leather sandals and holding a sword.  He was our protector, our Gatekeeper.  We were given the rope to hold and, not only did it bind us together, it prevented anyone coming between us.  Each of us, in turn, was draped in a cloak to keep us warm on our journey.

We were guided through the forest towards a shack, a candle glowed from a window and when we arrived there was a pond outside which was crystal clear.  The inside of the shack was breath-taking, completely crystal.  There was a man inside the shack and we instinctively knew that he was the same man as last time.  This time the man was not dressed as a monk but wore robes of gold with crystals down the front.  His face was not hidden this time, he smiled in welcome.  He told us we were his children and he blessed each of us in turn.  The feeling of unconditional love was overwhelming and our tears flowed.  He opened a large book and started to read but we could hear no words.  We asked him what he was telling us but he told us that we already knew and that we needed to look within.  We knew he was guiding and teaching us, he was our Master.  He gave us each a curved sword and told us that we would face a challenge and that we should not shy away from it.  We would face the challenge together and help one another through it.

A woman then wandered in, a lost soul.  There was something wrong with her throat and the feeling was that she had been strangled.  She was quite agitated, we tried to guide her towards the light but she didn’t feel she could go; she was scared.  We knew we had to accompany her on the first part of her journey and, as one, we started to ascend with the woman.  Bright golden lights started to dart around and I tingled from head to toe although I couldn’t feel my body.  People appeared and I knew the woman had to move forward then.  She was reluctant but we told her she had to go; she moved away towards the people who came for her.  When she left we all descended and returned back to the camp fire.  Our journey was over. 

In discussion afterwards it was clear to all of us that this was a follow-on from our first circle.  It was the same guide but this time he had revealed himself to us.  Crystals are very significant with all of us and maybe he is telling us to pay more attention to them.  The unconditional love coming from our guide was overwhelming and we know we have much to learn from him.  I’m not sure why the woman wandered in – was she just attracted to our energy and needed help or was she our first challenge.  Whatever – we had helped her.

We left each other last night feeling so totally blessed.