Just Flicking the Switch

Unmoored

2013-01-15T13:28:00.000+11:00

In the late afternoon sun I watched the reflections of mooring posts ruffled by the breeze on the water. I found myself at the water's edge after receiving a phone call that brought my world to a screeching halt. While I was sitting there, watching the gulls and the sail boats, I noticed a the gulls perching on the mooring posts nearby. As I looked at them, I felt that familiar ping on my soul's radar. The more I looked at the weathered wooden posts with the array of mooring lines attached to them, the more I felt myself moved by them. Again, I learnt something from the seemingly mundane. These thoughts became fodder for this sketch.

I realised we all need moorings in life - friends, family and lovers. But the most important ones are internal and self-made. I hope that I can be a mooring post for others at times - to hold boats firmly against the drift of the current in stormy water; to stand alone at times and wait patiently for the boat to come ashore; to provide a vantage point for visiting gulls to watch the world go by for a while; or simply to be a place of quiet rest. Sometimes life demands that you cut mooring lines with the faith that there will be new moorings in the unknown. If we could each be a mooring post for at least one person in this world, surely it would be a better place for all. There is real beauty in simple and mundane things if only we take the trouble to look beyond the obvious.

Kintsugi and the Beauty of Brokenness

2012-11-21T23:21:00.004+11:00

“All of these lines across my face

Tell you the story of who I am

So many stories of where I’ve been

And how I got to where I am…”

I love these opening lines of The Story (I love Sara Ramirez’ version of the song) - it articulates that imperfections are what defines us and sets us apart from others. This became particularly relevant to me when I stumbled across an article on Japanese ceramics. We live in a world where symmetry, perfection and eternal youth are idealised. Age and imperfections are undesirables. We tend to look on age as “damaged or worn” skin tissue and degeneration. Isn’t it sad that by doing this we deny the core of who we really are.

The article I came across was about the Japanese art of Kintsugi. Kintsugi dates from the 15th century when a Japanese shogun sent a broken bowl to China to be mended. It returned with crude ugly staples holding it together. The Japanese craftsmen set about to find a more aesthetic alternative to restoring the bowl to its former glory. This is how kintsugi was born. They repaired the damaged ceramics with gold. They believe if something has suffered damage, it has a history and is therefore beautiful. I love the idea of highlighting the repair instead of hiding it. Resilience is "soul gold". This struck me as a particularly beautiful philosophy. Instead of attempting to hide the damage or flaws, they made these features of the new piece. The vicissitudes of existence over time, to which we are all susceptible, could not be clearer than in the breaks, the knocks, and the shattering of the ceramic vessel. This poignancy or aesthetic of existence shows a compassionate sensitivity and a belief that it has a beauty that is dependent on the very faults it seeks to mend, not by hiding them, but by celebrating them as part of the life of the bowl. Mending the fissures with gold, made it not only decorative but even more valuable than before the damage was done. More than just a means of repair, kintsugi promotes a hopeful philosophy; unexpected damage can be an opportunity for transformation and reinvention. Kintsugi is essentially a belief in reified transcience.

Why are we so unforgiving of our own scars and broken bits? Whenever something is “broken” and repaired or restored in some way, we always want it to be the way it was before the damage was done. I wonder what would be possible if we could honour all our life shattering experiences in this way? What if the wounds and wear of time were recognised as survival’s beauty instead? Instead of frowning about the cracks in our own lives, what if we made a point of treating the broken pieces of our lives with the tenderness and care of a Japanese kintsugi artist – illuminating them and assimilating them into who we are? Would we not be more at peace with ourselves if we were able to view the cracks and chinks in our lives as opportunities to be transformed into something more beautiful, not in spite of the cracks, but because of them? What might become possible if all experiences of breaking could be honoured this way — if the wounds and wear of time were recognized as survival’s beauty? If we could rewire our neural pathways to think differently about life’s injuries, we would more than likely transform our experience of them.

Finding this article about Kintsugi affirms that one can only live an authentic life with one’s scars exposed. There is strength in admitting vulnerability. Isn’t it funny how children are always show scars like medals and lovers use them as secrets to reveal? Our scars tell a story of who we are. They bear testimony that we have lived, loved, hurt, cried and healed. Why do we attempt to hide our scars or get disheartened when we are unable to put the shards of life back together exactly the way they were? When we own the reality of our lives, the truths of it, scars and all, we learn to live with grace and declare with pride – This is who I am. Emotional scars tell all kinds of stories – disappointment, rejection, heartbreak, failure and loss. There may be tenderness beneath some scars but the simple definitive decision to live with them and let go, is a catalyst for profound change.

Healing is much like kintsugi. When the vessel has been shattered, letting go is easier once you have been able to take a good look at yourself and assess the damage. Find out where the hurt is, which pieces are missing and what you used to look like. Fit the pieces together, sand down the rough and splintered edges (desensitise the hurt) and accept that you will never be the same as you were. You have been touched and you have grown. It is rather ironic that the kintsugi craftsmen use a toxic a resin to repair the damage and heal the shattered ceramic vessel. It takes time, patience and optimism. Sometimes it is precisely the most toxic things that become instruments of transformation but it requires care and awareness and an open mind. This is why people who have suffered pain and growth are so clearly marked by their experience that they have a sort of gravity of excellence to them. People who are able to let go and accept what is, are not afraid to be broken again because they know it leads to new experiences. These are the people who command your attention because of what they have survived but we forget that they did not get that way because they stayed the way they were made. They took risks, got burned and broken, lost people close to them and then reassembled themselves with care, love and hope. Too often we try to pretend that the mistakes we made never happened and attempt to hide any evidence that something bad occurred. But in doing so, we forget that our scars remind us that we survived and have a story to tell. They remind us that there is a moment of healing behind the break. Like the broken objects that the Japanese mend with gold, the scars that life sometimes leaves us with can be a source where the beauty of our inner strength and compassion emerges. Fill your scars with gold - love, forgiveness of yourself and others, joy, kindness and hope. Imagine how strong that bond of metal is on the fragile clay walls. Isn’t every scar thick, carefully made and a living testimony of resilience? Wear them proudly, you have earned them.

My Pretty One

2012-09-25T11:30:00.000+10:00

It seems like only yesterday that I cradled you in my arms and fell in love with your smile… tonight, you left the front door as a radiant young woman on the brink of a new chapter in life. Coming home after dropping you off, I came across signs of your tornado passing through the house in the chaos of preparations this afternoon, and I smiled. You have been such a transformative power in my life from the moment I found out about you. You have touched my life in ways I cannot begin to articulate and I will never be the same.

I look at you and don’t only see the beautiful young woman in the scarlet dress, I see my little girl who always searched for my hand when she was uncertain… You will always be this curious dichotomy – woman and little girl in my eyes. I remember singing you to sleep many nights, explaining that the dusting of freckles on your nose is like a sprinkling of fairy dust – magical beauty that you have been given. I still saw the adorable fairy dust on your nose tonight – and it seems to be so apt – my little girl is still in there somewhere. The dimples when you smile took my breath away when I discovered them the first time I held you swaddled in a blanket and tonight, the radiant smile brought many tears to my eyes.

I recall teaching you to read, teaching you the difference between hexagons and pentagons, nursery rhymes, colours and many other things. We spent hours colouring pictures, building puzzles and watching cartoons together. I will never forget the first day you went to Nursery School – the teacher called, you had punched a boy and given him a black eye – he had deserved it. It was hard not to chuckle and the teacher could hardly stifle her laugh – you have always been a feisty and fiery one and I realize just how appropriate the scarlet dress is tonight. I am so proud of the young woman you have become and I hold my breath each time you start a new chapter – how can I not?

My heart squeezes when I look at you because I realize that nothing under the sun compares to the love of a mother for her child. It is a different kind of vulnerability – seeing a wondrous incarnation of yourself outside of your own existence. Above all, I hope you will one day know just how much I do love you and how profoundly you have touched my life. I love you Snookums.

Love

Mommy

2012-08-29T16:08:00.001+10:00

The "broken" Hallelujah

Hallelujah is a Hebrew word which when translated means "Glory to the Lord". I recorded this cover of the Leonard Cohen hit recently on a visit to South Africa. I love the song - it speaks to my life on so many levels. It touches on the human notions of vulnerability, confusion, seduction betrayal and guilt.

But the underlying message is that all the perfect and broken hallelujah's have equal value. It is an affirmation of faith and hope in life, love and surrender. It speaks of the brokenness of our humanity and the vulnerabillity of love and our humanness.

It reminds me of e.e. cummings' line

"i do not know what is is about you that closes and opens; only something in me understands the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses."

It is only when you live a life of challenge as opposed to one of comfort that you grow. When you grow, you become whole unto yourself. That is the broken hallelujah - it is a humble affirmation of gratitude for discovering the blessing in heartache and the power of renewal. If it weren't for heartache you would never find joy.

Hallelujah for the broken ones and for the ones which I know are yet to be spoken.

2012-03-12T09:57:00.000+11:00

Just Be

Life is about "is-ness" not "oughtness"

Stillness is a pre-requisite for true connection with yourself and others. If a beautiful pebble is thrown into your soul's pond, you need to be still to see and feel the ripples. It is when you are still that the pebble makes a deep splashing sound instead of skimming obnoxiously to the other side with no impact.

It is when you are open to the gifts of life instead of clinging to expectations or anticipated outcomes, that the magic happens in your soul. It is in the silent spaces between my thoughts that I have discovered the beauty, magic and mystery of the moment rising to the surface. It is when I am quiet and in a creative frame of mind that I am truly happiest. Just BE - let go and live in the moment as it is not as you think it ought to be - and you will discover an abundance and regeneration you never imagined possible.

On Sacred Ground

2012-03-02T23:05:00.001+11:00

Like most people, I adore babies and toddlers, not because they are so noisy but because they are so incredibly beautiful. There is something so perfect about a child that moves me and melts my heart. Aside from the obvious cliché’s about innocence, I think we recognise our Unconditioned Self in them. The Unconditioned Self is known by many different labels (Taoists call it the Uncarved Block, Hindus refer to eternal bliss consciousness and Christians refer to Original Innocence among others) but essentially the unconditioned self is the essence of YOU before the world and the ego got in the way. It’s the memory of God that you forget about as you grow older and life batters and bruises you. We can learn much from the unadulterated essences of children.

For years I felt like there was something missing in my make-up somewhere, like a chapter in a novel was missing and therefore felt incomplete and inadequate. As a result I searched relentlessly to find happiness in my career, in friends, in relationships but it was doomed to fail. It occurred to me this morning that this feeling of lack led me on a wild goose chase searching somewhere else for happiness. I overlooked what was here when I was chasing after there. I never seemed to find it because it was like an ever-elusive missing piece of a puzzle. The core of the problem is the perception that the source of happiness is external to you. This one misperception and fear breeds feelings of unworthiness, lack and misery. The earth moved for me when I realised that I am happiest when I am painting, drawing or singing – creating something. The shift occurred when I realised that what was giving me joy was already inside me. Universal joy is in your heart and soul already. You are sacred ground. You do not need a pilgrimage to some holy site to find redemption and the secret of fulfillment. Your heart is the most sacred site in the world. You are what you have been searching for so desperately. As long as you think there is something wrong with you, your life will manifest this belief.

We have all suffered great pain, heartache, disillusionment, betrayal and devastation but the key is to remember that experiences are not analogous to identity. Perhaps this is why Buddhists will rather say, you are “with fear” instead of saying “you are afraid” – the fear is not who you are. Attachment to such emotions is the source of suffering. Whatever you choose to identify with, you will attract more of. I don’t think problems are fixed, we have to outgrow them and let go of them. In essence I realised that what is wrong with the world is what is wrong in me. Your world changes when you do. We are raised to believe that we live in a world when really the world lives in you.

We are raised to believe that time and reality is this entity that exists independently of us – something separate from us, but perhaps the argument for a biocentric universe has a point. If so, then your mind can really move mountains. For years I subconsciously accepted that the world was pretty much a deterministic place and I responded as a conditioned reflex… not much different from Pavlov’s dogs, is it? How many of us are walking around with conditioned responses? When the world (or your career or relationship or whatever it may be) rings, do you drool?

When I discovered what Cognitive Psychology was about, I thought that the world was a world of choice. The Cognitive School of Psychology believe that your life is what your thoughts make it. It is still limited because we are still defined as an effect (albeit with choice) of the world when in fact you ARE the world.

Perhaps the world is more of a mirror – a projection of your mind. This is synchronous with tenets of quantum physics and the Uncertainty Principle. For years physicists and scientists continued to construct models based on the assumption of a separate universe “out there” into which we have each individually been born. They presume the existence of one essential reality which prevails independently of us. But, quantum physics experiments have shown the opposite. Results (and what is manifested)do depend on whether someone is observing. This is particularly clear in the well known two slit experiment which shows when a subatomic particle or a bit of light passes through the slits, the particle behaves like a bullet passing through one hole or the other if it is being observed or measured, but if no one is observing the particle, it exhibits the properties of a wave that can inhabit all possibilities – including passing through both holes simultaneously. When I read about it, I thought it is pretty much like a toddler (and some men!) who only behave when you are looking… But I digress… Perhaps this is where we jinx our romantic relationships... When we try to "measure" the bond or commitment by our expectations, we manifest insecurity.

In the biocentric paradigm, consciousness creates the universe. In other words, the universe is created by life not the other way around. Essentially you are the process not the part of the process that you control. Reality involves your consciousness. All experiences are bits of information that occur in your mind. We use space and time to make sense of it – they are creations of the mind, not absolute external entities. Science hasn’t confronted the one thing that is most familiar and most mysterious – consciousness. The old Newtonian way of thinking assumes the universe to be a lifeless collection of particles which was behaving in a semi-predicable way. Science is pretty good at figuring out and explaining how the parts work, but the big picture remains a problem. Science cannot explain how consciouness arrives from matter.

In other words, consciousness is the matrix on which the cosmos hinges. Colour, sound, temperature and such only exist as perceptions in our heads, not as absolute essences.
I think Hawking may be right in believing that the universe may not have had a unique beginning - that its initial conditions existed in quantum superposition, just like the electrons of an atom's electron cloud. In other words, the initial conditions were not fixed and singular, assigned either by God or by Chance. Instead they are relevant only in relation to today's universe in which physicists calculate them from working backward from the present conditions that we do observe. I think there is value in interpreting empirical science through a metaphysical lens.

Happiness is not a destination or an external entity to be found. Instead, its about embracing the superposition of the unconditioned self and seeing the beauty and treasure within your own soul. Believe in your own worth and your worthiness will show through your eyes. That should be your pilgrimage - to the sacred grounds and swamplands od your own soul.

2012-01-27T16:56:00.001+11:00

The Soul Alchemist & an Updated YOU

I have been getting increasingly annoyed with technology recently. I am forever getting notifications (usually at the least convenient time) that an updated version of whatever the software application I happen to be using at that point in time, is ready for an update download. This morning, in the middle of a document, I had to shut down and restart my computer because of one of these updates. After uttering a few colourful words, I sat back impatiently and waited for it to restart. It was then that I had a moment of insight and had to suppress a smile. Isn’t it funny how some things in life just seem to happen at the right moment and convey a message that you really need to hear?

Just like a computer system sometimes needs maintenance and a reset so to speak, so do we. Sometimes, we also need to shut down, to download a newer version of ourselves and restart on a clean page. Sometimes it is a good thing that all the previous data have been lost – it means that you have to start on a clean slate with a new updated perspective so to speak.

Come to think of it, in my experience it is at those times when we feel “stuck” or in a rut of sorts it is a symptom of a bigger transformation that is underway behind the scenes? From times when I have felt “stuck” and unsure of the next step, I have learnt to accept that sometimes it is ok to feel stuck and that it’s often a symptom and a herald of some change. For the caterpillar to transform and become a butterfly, it needs to spend time in the crucible of change where it feels painfully stuck. The more I think about it the more it makes sense.

A transformative process always seems to need some form of containment. A chrysalis facilitates and protects this miraculous process of transformation. The same is true for an egg and a womb. Transformation requires confinement and containment where the totality of the system surrenders to the process without interference.

So when something appears to be inescapable – that is the moment when the process of change begins. In emotional terms, over the last few months, my caterpillar soul looked in the mirror and saw what it could no longer be. But to melt and shed the previous form it needed to produce huge intensity, energy and internal heat. The chrysalis is a mirror of change and I had to be inside the experience for as long as was necessary. To use it, to listen in and discover a newer updated version of me.

I love my coffee… But I don’t get to see the hands that harvested the beans, packed them, shipped them to Australia and often not even when the barista is making the brew. The invisible work is the essence of change and transformation. The old me was shedding its form – that was the outward visible part but the invisible part was the new version of me that was being formed in silence. I have had to clear the deck and scrub everything down, discard what was not worthwhile any longer – to forgive, to heal and to make peace. It’s a dimensional shift that is required. Like the software that was outdated and no longer functional, feeling stuck is an entry point for a dimensional shift.

Astronomers have also had to rethink their views somewhat – it is only recently that we have been able to see into a black hole instead of just seeing space. The black hole of a crisis is the moment just before the breakthrough – but the brilliance that awaits you on the other side is only accessible if you embrace your chrysalis moment and the crucible of change. If you can do that, you will find the dimensional shift and see how the black hole in your universe curves into new possibilities. But finding new possibilities requires uncertainty, intense volatility and transformation. It means getting up and reconnecting to the line of your life and endeavours – joining it to where is has moved to now – not where you left it. It requires some robustness and capacity for spontaneous recovery.

I also realised that we lose our sense of reverence too quickly. Just think about relationships – how a new relationship can inspire you and make your spirits soar… Have I lost my capacity for reverence? Can I embrace life with a spirit of excitement for the unknown? Perhaps failures are directly related to a loss of reverence. Life demands reinvention, chutzpah, resilience and heaps of optimism.

There is so much darkness in the world. Just look up at night – the majority of the night canvas is darkness with pinpricks of light. There is light and there is hidden light – what scientists call dark matter. Like the stars, we are engulfed by darkness – a void that has not been illuminated. The more I think about life and my place in it – it seems that our task here is to claim the dark void, to fill it and release the hidden light. When you meet a stranger – the space between you is pretty much a void. Once you have started conversation – you will share your worlds – and find common ground. In this process you are creating streaks of light between you.

The conversation and interaction transports you to a different place and time and you find yourself on the edge of discoveries, creating new possibilities. It is inside the void and in the interaction, that hidden light is released from its concealment and you co-create your universe together. That is why I believe giving your presence to someone is the greatest thing you can give. Offering your full attention and offering your vulnerability is the greatest form of generosity. Giving your mindful presence is the greatest gift you can give to anyone. This is what lifts the conversation from the mundane to the sacred.

My mind has been buzzing today and I guess I tend to kaleidoscope too much. I try to see patterns and synchrony in life and between seemingly unrelated things. In the process I try to apply concepts and principles cross field – not always successfully I might add. I do this to try to discover new meanings in new connections and combinations and to learn to anticipate what is newly emerging. It’s my version of connecting the dots to find constellations where some will only see random stars. For me life is about finding meaning, not a search for happiness which the world seems to think is symmetrical.

Symmetry is a distortion invented by Newton. There is similarity and likeness but not symmetry. The Newtonian obsession with symmetry expects action and reaction to be symmetrically opposite and equal. There is no symmetry in relationships or anything connected with human beings. Reciprocity is certainly not symmetrical. How can it when we are all so unique? Why do we always insist on expecting symmetry? It’s the difference between equity and equitability. Equal by definition is not equitable. Karl Marx didn’t get this. Nothing in this world is equal. This is a very much differentiated universe. Everything is unique. I wish the world would understand if anything is meant to be equal it should be equal to itself. I am unique because I bring a unique presence to the world – the same applies to you.

Reciprocity means that each is working to help the other meet his/her needs. Need are by nature, seldom symmetrical and therefore neither is their fulfilment. Giving yourself or your love should be because you feel compelled to, because it gives meaning to you and a sense of purpose. It is not a conditional commitment of symmetrical returns.

I took an emotional sabbatical the last few months – a retreat from the world and relationships to find that containment to grow. I think we are all engaged in an alchemical process. Alchemy was not about turning lead into gold as some would believe. I read recently that it was about transforming base matter by liberating the inherent essence or the meaning in it. Transmutation implied looking within – looking at what the substance is to discover what its meaning and nature are. The true alchemist in the middle ages was after discovering the valuable essence of whatever base substance he was working with. In life, I believe, we have to be Soul Alchemists – to explore the depths of our souls and to discover our uniqueness - our soul's gold – that which defines you and sets you apart from others. That is the penultimate vocation in life - to take time out when you're battered and bruised to find that special magic in yourself and transform what you thought to be pure lead into solid gold. Sometimes, you only see lead in yourself because that is what you have been conditioned to believe, or perhaps the possibility of having some "gold" inside of you seems too far fetched and unrealistic?

This brings to mind the passage in Coelho’s The Alchemist:

“This is why alchemy exists,” the boy said. “So that everyone will search for his treasure, find it, and then want to be better than he was in his former life. Lead will play a role until the world has no more use for lead; and then lead will have to turn itself into gold. That’s what alchemists do. They show that, when we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better too.”

The updated version - A happier me :0)

You are exactly where you are supposed to be. It is up to you to transform yourself - no-one else can do it for you. You have to do the work. You have to have the meltdown before you can break the chrysalis and turn your lead into gold. Claim the void. Shine your light, be reverent. Shut down. Turn it off. Download the latent updated you. Give yourself permission to be new and embrace the innocence of hope. The only “perfect” is what IS. “Should” is a chimera of the mind. Life is too short for shoulds. Truth can hurt but it can also liberate the butterfly from the chrysalis. Enjoy the mandate of being alive and having the power of choice. Thank God for the power of renewal.

Message to inner self…. Download complete and Update installed. Live it dammit!

Hannibal's Elephants, Dynamic Systems Theory and other Junk in my Trunk!

2011-10-28T11:23:00.004+11:00

I am becoming whole - there is less baggage now!

“Oh dear God, please, please just give me a sign!!” – after uttering these words in exasperation last night in the silence of the car on my way home, I found myself waiting – I’m not sure for what exactly. I wasn’t waiting for a flashing neon sign to appear in the road ahead, to be struck by lightning or anticipating a booming voice to hand down some divine guidance. I sat there and felt the weight of the words in the darkness of the car as I watched the rain and it occurred to me that we often ask for some sort of sign or metaphor to guide us but I wonder how often we miss the subtle signs and intuitive cues that present themselves to us every day.

How often does it happen that we miss them because we are looking for a shooting star to appear or waiting to be struck by lightning instead? It is often in the mundane settings and everyday activities of life that the most powerful insights can emerge. In a sense the mundane becomes a vehicle for the sacred. But this only happens if we look inwards instead of upwards and outwards, waiting for something dramatic or wonderful to happen to alter the course of our lives.

It comes down to resonance. You will instinctively know, if something touches you. If you feel the tuning fork of your soul respond then you will know that there is something in it that speaks to something inside. The metaphor of an archaeologist sprang to mind. A bleary eyed, sunburnt dusty individual sifting through debris of hundreds of years until one small shard of pottery or flint resonates within them and opens the doors to discovery. I think we are all archaeologists or prospectors of sorts. Isn’t that also true about our inner journey? Are we not all sifting through the years and years of emotional debris and clutter to find a shard of something that is worth retaining? The difficulty lies in knowing which shards to carry in our backpacks and which ones to discard. I guess the key lies in resonance – if it is OF you or FOR you, you will feel your soul’s tuning fork answering and resounding in your heart because an element of it has always been there archetypically and is responding to it. The funny thing is that you cannot force resonance – it just happens. It’s something that happens naturally, like the smile that some things or people always bring to your face. It’s the resounding of your inner truth, when you find it or it finds you. I guess some people think of the law of attraction here, but this is not it. In terms of the law of attraction, you are trying to attract something which you do not have into your life. Resonance, on the other hand, is an echo or ping on the radar of something that is already there, submerged in your soul.

At this stage of my life I am the archaeologist, sitting among the ruins and debris, sifting through all the bits, examining each piece of the jigsaw puzzle of my life, and either discarding it or dusting it and wrapping it in canvas, and putting it away for safe keeping. I have not written for some time because I have had to take a significant step back and inward, evaluate who and what I am, where I am headed and who and what I want in life.

Someone very close to me told me recently that I have “changed” somehow, that there is a hardness or an edge to me. I construed it to be criticism at the time, but I think the hard edge is a protective measure, it’s not necessarily a bad thing. I think it is important to toughen up – I have had to in the last few years – to try an prevent myself from bruising so easily. I think that has been part of the growth process for me – letting go of my assumptions about how the world and the universe works and dealing with the emotional fall-out of the disillusionment born from my own naivety. I think in our innocence we all assume that there is some mystical element of reciprocity at work in the universe. But I have come to realise that I have been naïve – just because you do the best you can, and try to be a good person, it doesn’t mean that you will not find yourself like Job at any point in your life. Shit happens to good people. Similarly, just because you love someone with everything you possibly have to give, it doesn’t mean they will reciprocate. We cannot always control the course of events. I think in the last few years, those illusions I had have been completely shattered and the main growth point that comes from it is that you are humbled because you realise that you cannot control everything. On a personal level, I think I have had to let go of being a victim. Growing up means taking responsibility for how you deal with what happens since you cannot control the events themselves. I have come to realise that life is not necessarily a “problem to be solved” but rather a dance with a rhythm and steps that keep changing and becoming more and more intricate – kind of like Dynamic Systems Theory and the notion of complete interconnectedness.

Dynamic Systems Theory (DST) has been a fascinating read especially in terms of the application to language acquisition, but I see a deeper personal application value too. DST is a branch of Mathematics which was originally about very simple systems such as the two coupled variables in a double pendulum. Even though the system has only two interacting variables or degrees of freedom, the trajectory of the system is very complex. When one applies this to a system that is inherently complex, where innumerable variables may have degrees of freedom, DST becomes the science of dynamic systems. The calculations involved in DST is rather complex, but we don’t need to do the math to understand the principles behind it. A dynamic system is characterised by what is called “complete interconnectedness” – in other words, where all variables are inter-related and changes in one variable will impact on all others that form part of it. The point is that in a complex system, changes over time cannot necessarily be calculated or predicted exactly because the variables keep changing. When mulling over this way past midnight recently, I thought this was rather analogous to life. Little pebbles that are thrown into the pond at an early age sometimes lead to devastating tsunamis down the line. You have no idea how significant the ramifications will be when you ignore you inner voice and move in the opposite direction.

Dynamic systems are also nested in the sense that every system is always part of another system. When I read this I had a real A-HA! moment – I have always speculated about some sort of interconnectedness between things in life. The same dynamic principles operate at all levels. The interesting part is that sub-systems tend to develop so-called “attractor states” over time which are preferred but not necessarily predictable. Scholars like De Bot, Lowie and Verspoor explain it as “the two different ways horses may run: they either trot or gallop, but there seems to be no in between way of running”. I wonder if we don’t operate like this on a sub-conscious level too – although we all espouse to believe in shades of grey – I think all too often in life things are either really black or white – especially in emotional terms. It is either something that makes you feel good and happy, or it isn’t; it serves you or it doesn’t; you are either committed or you aren’t - you are either true to yourself or you aren’t. The bugger is that we often tend to convince ourselves that there is an in-between twilight dimension which is in most cases just a way of justifying our self-defeating actions to ourselves.

If life and growth is a dance, we aim for interactional synchrony, that seamless understanding between partners that are attuned to the interactional process. There are times when we step on each other’s toes or miss the beat, moments of a-synchrony. But as DST follows, co-regulated interaction – mutually constructing meaning by finding the beat again, leads to the emergence of creative communicative behaviours in the context. It is often exactly when you have stepped on each other’s toes, and have to stop for a moment before you find the rhythm again, that you find your authentic self – that ping on your soul’s radar. From my understanding, DST and pretty much life as I have found it, is about engagement and disengagement, synchrony and discord, breakdown and repair and all the bleeding, panting, teary, exhilirating and sweaty bits that go with it.

There are so many aspects of DST that I can apply to life as we live it, but one in particular struck me. While reading research on grammatical development, I stumbled across Van Geert’s precursor model. Basically, in a precursor model there are two variables, a predecessor and a successor. Growth in the successor is initially suppressed by growth in the predecessor, which is a form of competition, until a threshold is reached. After this, growth in both variables shares any of the logically possible relations defined by competition and support. If one applies this to life – the present growth level depends on the previous growth level plus the interaction between that level and the resources available at that point. This is supported by the idea that life is always in some sort of flux. Change is the only constant. Like a dynamic system, we are in constant complex interaction with our environment and internal resources. This produces what is referred to as self-organized equilibrium points, whose form and stability depend on the system’s constraints.

In other words, life is going to get more and more complex as you go along, but the good news is that you will instinctively know when something resonates within you – when your inner tuning fork responds, to guide you to take “time out” to find your equilibrium again. It seems to be a bit Darwinian to me – as a constant series of make-do solutions that work, given my abilities, inner capacity for it, goals and personal history – those bits of flint and shards of pottery that make up the inner archetypes.

We all seem to think that life is linear and that personal growth follows some predictable linear curve – I am beginning to thing that it is a lot more chaotic than the seemingly ordered sequence we think it to be. But ironically – the chaos is part of the process. I think the chaos itself is some sort of mystical alembic for creativity and dynamic tension. This hard edge or edge of chaos, is a paradoxical state – a spinning top spiralling between order and chaos, a humming oscillation between these extremes demanding risk, exploration and experimentation.

I have realised that I cannot find any relationship more evolved than the level of development I bring to it myself. Life and living true to your Self – or living authentically – isn’t a gift. It is a continuing struggle – a journey. It takes a lot of pain and effort and a lot of digging and soul searching through years of debris to find that magical healing place and inner acceptance.

Someone I love dearly asked me recently if I am authentic and if I really know how to enjoy life and have fun. Aside from the implicit criticism and the hurt I felt at the time it seems to me that authenticity is not the same as simply “doing” something. To “be” and to “do” are two different verbs. Your doing follows directly from your being. I may force myself to “do” differently, but the inevitable dissonance will never bring happiness. I think we should avoid making the same mistake Hannibal of Carthage made. If we have flawed assumptions on which we base our actions and build our lives, the effects can be devastating. Hannibal’s advisors convinced him that elephants were the perfect war animal but never told him that elephants will get spooked during battle and trample anything and anyone in their path. Hannibal disregarded counter advice and stubbornly clung to the initial advice and lost many men. Our false assumptions undermine us like Hannibal’s elephants. They get stuck in our own minds and we seem unable to get past them, even when they are trampling everyone and everything that is dear to us. I have lived with the assumption that I am inherently unlovable for many years and have tried to compensate and earn love as a result through academic excellence, hard work, and trying to prove my value and that I deserve a place in the sun. The more I succumbed to the pressure of being the ideal person – the more I was invalidating who I really am and affirming that I am inadequate as I am. I have mentioned before that imperfection seems to be the desirable thing – it is precisely for my imperfections that I want to be loved.

In my silence the last few months ,I have grown to understand that I do not need to be loved – not at the expense of my sense of Self. I have grown to understand that everyone will eventually leave me – we are all in this on our own so it makes a lot more sense to learn to love who I am rather than try to meet someone else’s notion of who I ought to be. I have taken a very hard look at life and at my self in the last few months and have taken some radical steps to clear away all the clutter.

Aside from a radical physical transformation, I have been clearing the emotional debris too. I am assessing all relationships in my life and discarding those which undermine my sense of self. I have literally been getting rid of the junk in my trunk. I have closed some doors, burned some bridges and cleared my space. I drove past this banner at a construction site recently. I felt the ping on my radar. It is so apt. It made my day, and I am choosing to believe that it is the one sign I have been looking for. It just fits and my heart resonated with it completely.

I have been stripping away all the non-essential bits and pieces to attain the gift of individuation. The gift is only attained from living a mindful journey, hearing the summons of your inner tuning fork – a heart resonance … I am happy at last. I can write my own story with wide eyed excitement for what the next chapter holds. I just know it will be beautiful.

Audio Corner

2011-05-20T12:40:00.004+10:00

Hi Everyone

I have finally figured out how to upload my recordings. Check out the Audio Corner in the navigation bar on the right.

See an example below. This is a fairly accurate indicator of my mood today. I have always loved this song from Andrew Lloyd Webber's Cats. I had so much fun recording this one.

Hope you enjoy.

02 Memory by CornflowerBlue

I wonder where this little one went.... Today, I wish I could go back to the blonde little girl I was sooooo many years ago. Maybe I don't stop long enough to smell the flowers anymore.

Sex Kitten, Bitch, Alley cat, Hound or Puppy Dog? Which are you?

2011-05-09T17:27:00.010+10:00

We recently said farewell to a teacher at the college and when I said my thankyou’s and goodbyes, I confessed my not-so-politically-correct-tendency of associating people I meet with objects or animals. It is not a conscious process – these associations just seem to happen automatically.

Usually, when I meet someone for the first time, there is a quality or trait about the new acquaintance which emerges and automatically converts into a visual metaphor in my mind.

The lovely lady in question here, I associated with a chilli pepper. She struck me as quite sassy and fiery. I got the distinct impression from our first encounter that there is much more to her than meets the eye. It was a very positive association for me and turned out to be very true. She was a firecracker and spiced things up somewhat, and she will be sorely missed.

But I digress… I’m pretty sure we have all assumed that we are either a “dog person” or a “cat person”… usually when it comes to pet preferences. But the analogy runs a bit deeper than that… I think there are very strong anthro-zoological archetypes in relationships. I just can’t seem to decide which is which, especially when it comes to relationships with men and women. I’m wondering whether or not we shapeshift between different archetypes. Perhaps that is the answer…

This is a bit tongue-in-cheek but I genuinely do associate people with animals more frequently than anything else. In some cases, I can even specify the breed of dog or cat in question. There is the Cocker Spaniel guy - you just want to fluff his hair and touch him whenever you see him. He is irresistible and openly affectionate. You ALWAYS know when he is happy to see you – sometimes he wags his tail so hard that it can knock you off balance. These guys are playful with boyish charm. He is honest, (well, most of the time…) He won’t voice “harmless little lies” or tell you he has been somewhere when he hasn’t. He will forget your birthday and your anniversary, not because he is being spiteful, but simply because he is incapable of doing so. But, when there is a celebration, he will join in enthusiastically. Should you ever catch him doing something wrong, he will look very guilty and plead for forgiveness with such sad puppy dog eyes that you feel a natural compulsion to reach down and pat him on the head. It is very difficult to hold a grudge against a Spaniel.

The Staffordshire Terrier guy – he is territorial and cocky. He likes to strut around and look strong. He will mark his territory whenever there is another hound in sight – as a matter of principle. He is not as intimidating as the Rottweiler, the big aggressive but loyal dog. Some men are like that. Then there are the Labrador types who are not as protective of you, but they are very loving and loyal. Then there is the Small-Man-Syndrome Chihuahua type – they bark neurotically, are cheeky, obnoxious and try to over-compensate for their small stature. Of course, I have met a few Pitt Bulls too – they are just mean but if you are in control, they will do whatever you ask which is not necessarily a good thing.

However, some men who start out as Spaniels tend to shape shift into a Siamese cat after a while. I have had a Spaniel-Siamese encounter. They are notoriously unpredictable, independent and difficult to read. Like a Siamese, they will rub up against you one day, and the next will act like they have no idea who on earth you are. The invariably have their own agenda and it may not necessarily include you. These are the guys who disappear from the radar for days on end and then suddenly reappear at your doorstep as if nothing happened. The most annoying thing about them is that the moment you are ready to banish them forever, they do something really cute which disarms you. These guys are like difficult pets – they are impossible to “train”. You can tell them umpteen times not to drink from the tap and to leave the fish in the fishbowl, and you will get an appearance of obedience. However, as soon as you leave the room, they will do exactly the opposite – because they can. They like to watch things move and like to play. These are the guys who will show no interest for days on end like a cat with a piece of string…. If the string lies there and is available, they will sit there and groom themselves or fain boredom. However, watch the curious intensity of a Siamese if the string is moved. Then you have their undivided attention. Then again, some of these Spaniel Siamese are just alley cats who will hump anything in sight for the hell of it!

However, just as some of these adorable Spaniels shape shift into Siamese cats, I must concur that some women deserve the feline adjectives attributed to them. There are some women who are prone to “catty” behaviour, some are just cougars on the prowl (present company excluded!), while others are purring sex kittens. I’m sure you have met them all. The problem lies in knowing which role to assume when – are you a puppy dog when he is a Siamese or are you the Siamese when he is the Spaniel??

My recent experiences with men seem to indicate that men tend to respect the cats more. A cat is independent and kind of bitchy at times. It is an accomplishment if you have managed to win the affections of a cat. I reckon cats have a wonderful sense of discretion… they endure the company of dogs until it becomes insufferably boring and not a moment longer. They make no bones about their boredom. In fact, I don’t think cats are capable of faking - well - pretty much anything.

One of the things I admire most about cats, is their ability to move objects with their eyes. A cat can stare at a door with such incredible force that any human within a 3 mile radius will arrive and magically open the door to let it out. Dogs on the other hand, dislike being stared at. Most men dislike silent treatment. Once the cat has mastered the stop and stare technique, no dog is safe. Ask any man who has been given the look…

I don’t think cats are unpleasant… they are merely disinterested at times. Heaven knows I have been at times. On the other hand, it is not hard to understand why men refer to some women as sex kittens… stroke a purring cat and you know why. Cats are very sensual and tactile. If you treat a cat right, she will stretch herself out, purr and leave you in no doubt whatsoever that she appreciates the attention. On the other hand, I think I have been too much of a puppy when it comes to men. You always know where you stand with a puppy. If a puppy likes you, you know it. It seems to me that most men, even the Spaniels, prefer the cats… They like the chase. They are fascinated when the string moves especially if another dog or cat is interested.

So which am I? I think my Spaniel is shapeshifting into a Siamese at the moment. Every time I think I should switch to the dog type I lose. The puppy dog is always outsmarted by the cat, no matter how endearing the puppy may be. If only I could stop wagging my tail!

Da Vinci & the Imperfectly Perfect Me

2011-05-03T23:08:00.005+10:00

One of my favourite things about living in Sydney is that I get to commute by train instead of sitting in traffic on the highway between Pretoria and Johannesburg. Aside from falling asleep on the shoulder of a handsome random stranger now and then (yes, I have!!), it allows me time to think and wake up gradually before I tackle my day.

This morning, my mind wandered to the time I spent in Florence a few years ago on my “Shirley Valentine Trip” to Europe after my marriage ended. It was probably one of the most defining and empowering emotional journeys I have ever undertaken. For many years prior to that, I was desperate to visit Europe so that I could see and explore the buildings and cathedrals and admire the art I had studied as an undergraduate student in History of Art – my additional major. Florence is the ultimate Renaissance city and the Quattrocento is my favourite period of the Renaissance.

At the time, there was a fascinating exhibition of Leonardo da Vinci’s work which I visited more than once. He was a painter, a sculptor, an architect, a mathematician, a mechanic, an astronomer, an anatomist, physiologist, botanist, geologist, physician, a philosopher, a musician and a writer. I remember seeing the Mona Lisa in Paris for the first time a few days later and marvelled at how it continues to inspire so many people today but found it ironic that Da Vinci was not satisfied with this masterpiece and considered it incomplete.

I recall reading that he started painting the Mona Lisa in 1503 in Florence and laboured over it for 16 years before he finally sold it shortly before his death in 1519. In fact, in his notebooks, he lamented this dilemma and asked “Tell me, tell me, has one ever finished anything?” Isn’t it ironic, that Leonardo Da Vinci, probably one of the greatest minds of all time, felt inferior at times? Surely after 16 years of labouring on this painting, he would have perfected it? Does practise really make perfect?

I think there is a bit of Da Vinci’s dutiful perfectionism in all of us. It occurred to me that a lot of my stress stems from guilt-driven “demandingness”. In a sense I guess there is an inherent moral principle ingrained in me that compels me to feel guilty if I do not demand perfection of myself. How many of us feel that we may not fail because if we do, then we are somehow a lesser person? It is almost as if there is a compulsion or a moral obligation to strive for perfection.

It is a sobering thought that I worry and beat myself up emotionally out of a misplaced sense of guilt. There is this internal conditioning that plays in the background which says I have to be the perfect mom, I must not let bad things happen, I must always maintain control…. Failure to comply with these self-imposed imperatives leaves me feeling guilty and I realise that sub-consciously I condemn myself for being less than perfect. This in turn leads to stress and worry and feelings of self-recrimination. I think that is true for many women I know….

Sometimes we tend to measure ourselves against almost unattainable standards of perfection imposed by others. But as I realized in recent years and months especially, the plumbline of perfection which is set by others is an ever-changing, ever-shifting measure which becomes almost impossible to follow and ironically one which these individuals do not apply to themselves. For too long I have attempted to shape-shift my being and evolve to the measure and pace set by someone else. It is an impossible feat to shape-shift my soul to meet someone else’s obscure notions of perfection which seem impossible to pin down and delineate exactly. It is very difficult when there is a double standard or the goal post keeps shifting. This begs the question of whether perfection is ultimately desirable?

I am beginning to think that imperfection is more desirable because intrinsic to imperfection is a measure of freedom. William James contended that "Freedom in a world already perfect could only mean freedom to be worse, and who could be so insane as to wish that?...Surely the only possibility that one can rationally claim is the possibility that things may be better." Therefore, in a so-called perfect universe, the positive will already have been achieved. In an imperfect reality, we have a chance to make things better and to effect some positive change. So perhaps the key is not to strive for perfection but to strive to make things better than they are.

I for one, need imperfection. I need to see opportunities to better the world, to attempt to break new grounds of excellence. I need to have the space and the freedom to recognize that what I have done is not necessarily perfect, and may be flawed. But the flaws and imperfect bits are where I can grow and it is precisely those flaws which make me who I am.

Da Vinci attempted to capture not only the body but the personality and soul of the subject. He used “sfumato” and “chiaroscuro” to do this. Chiaroscuro (“light-dark”) is a painting technique which is characterized by using contrasts between light and dark, usually bold contrasts affecting a whole composition. It is also a technical term used by artists and art historians for using contrasts of light to achieve a sense of volume in modelling three-dimensional objects such as the human body. By using chiaroscuro, Da Vinci accentuated the mysteries of the work and he believed that “plunging things into light is plunging them into the infinite". Rembrandt was also famous for his use of chiaroscuro. And although it is beautiful in itself, the style seems to communicate light from darkness, truth from lies and life from death. It gives a fullness to the reality.

I think on a metaphorical level, we should aim to live life in chiaroscuro. I need to learn to embrace the light and dark in my soul – it is what gives me dimensionality, roundness and fullness of being.

Today, I realized again that too often I allow my self-confidence to take a battering because I face up to my flaws severely and frequently. Too often I allow it to become my main source of concern. I tend to focus too much on what I am not instead of seeing some of the gifts and blessings I do have. I am no Rembrandt, but I paint and sketch and sometimes my sketches are less than perfect. I tinker on the piano, strum a guitar and caress a violin and I do sing, admittedly not too badly but I do not proclaim to be a songbird of note. Admittedly, I am not a perfect specimen – far from it. I may not be a self-proclaimed solipsistic guru of wisdom or a concert pianist nor do I assume to have all the knowledge and experience to presume to tell others how to lead their lives or insinuate some self-devised psycho-babble bullshit to be infinite truths. I am simply a mother, an earthly woman, a career woman, an academic and yes

I am very much an imperfect specimen.

But I am perfect in my imperfection.
There is only one of me.

I have become very good at subjecting myself to a rigorous examination of my short-comings and defects and especially those which have been highlighted by someone else’s measure of perfection. Despite the flaws and the dark bits, I have light in me - I have many gifts and blessings in my life. I realized again today, how often the very yardstick against which I have measured myself is inherently flawed and egocentric to someone else’s notion of who and what I ought to be.

I have been mulling over this all day. Like Da Vinci who agonised over his paintings and sketches, I realised that I am too sensitive to the value judgements of others and too harsh in my sense of self-recrimination for being imperfect – a human being. I guess too often I have considered these value judgements to be valid because I have not trusted my inner sense of knowing and value and elevated some individuals to a status which allows them to pass judgement on me.

As Da Vinci may have discovered at the end of his life, perhaps practise doesn’t make perfect at all. And maybe that is a good thing because it means there is always room for improvement. Perhaps Da Vinci had a point when he said that perfection is not attained when there is nothing left to add, but rather when there is nothing left to take away. It’s about distilling my sense of self to my essence – to that core of what it is that defines me. Perhaps it is about stripping away all the superficial layers to reach the heart. That is what matters most.

I can only set my compass to my own True North. It is the only definition that should matter. I need to embrace the light and darkness in me and to relinquish the obsessive desire for maintaining control at all times. Sometimes, it is good to lose it a bit. I guess Einstein had a point, when he said “In order to form an immaculate member of a flock of sheep, one must, above all be a sheep.” ….And damn it, I am no sheep.

Mama Africa

2011-04-28T16:55:00.002+10:00

There is something to be said for Africa. If you are a child of Africa, you will know that you take Africa deep inside of you - she becomes part of your soul. It manifests as a lump in your throat when you stumble across something from that beautiful continent. I am sometimes reminded of this blood tie to my fatherland at the most unexpected times.

This weekend I visited the South African shop down the road to stock up on one or two items I particularly missed from South Africa. The shop was closed but I am grateful. As a result, I stood sulkily in front of the window and happened to notice some Ndebele dolls in the window. Imagine that - Ndebele dolls in Sydney! It brought a lump to my throat and reminded me of a very special woman who looked after me as a child. Martha was a rotund Ndebele woman. She was warm and loving and gave the best hugs in the world. For some reason, she always smelled like freshly baked bread. She knew exactly how I liked my toast in the mornings and would wait for me to come home after school. I remember her with great fondness.

She was as firm as she was loving. I never took chances with her. She had a stern look that would convey volumes in silence. My fondest memories of her are sitting with her to sort her beads according to colour in the last hour of the day before my mother returned from work. As a Ndebele woman she was a master beader and I was fascinated at the way in which she would create the most amazing colourful patterns with the tiny glass beads.

These traditional dolls have become a sought after export and provide income for many Ndebele women in Africa at the moment. But they have a rich cultural significance. A young man who wishes to court a woman, will place a doll outside her door. These dolls signify significant moments in women's lives. For me, they remind me of Martha - a loving mother figure from my childhood.

Africa is in my blood, and when I see icons of her like this I feel her stir in my soul. South Africa has a rugged beauty that she imprints on all her children at birth. I think it is something in the sunshine or walking around barefoot in her soil as a child. Mama Africa, I will always love you.

Life in my Kaleidoscope

2011-04-27T13:15:00.005+10:00

Into the Light - Debbie Le Roux 2011 - Aquarelle on board.

As a child, one of my favourite toys was a kaleidoscope which I received as a birthday
gift from a friend. I spent hours looking at the pretty colours, turning it continuously to create new ones.

I think life is a lot like looking at the world through a kaleidoscope. We all see colourful elements - shiny bits and pieces. But unless you turn to the light, a kaleidoscope is a dull tube that makes a rattling sound when you shake it. It is only when you look upwards, into the light that you see the incredible beauty and brilliance of colours waiting to be discovered.

There is something magic in colour. I have always found painting or working with colours

to be therapeutic in some way. This weekend's doodle (as above) is about moving into the light, even if the road ahead looms foreboding and appears to be uphill and rocky. No matter how shattered the reality may appear at the moment, the sun will rise again. Look to the light and you will find beauty in your fragmented kaleidoscope. When you do you will not only find beauty, but you will also find friends who want to see the picture in your kaleidoscope. I'm deeply grateful that I have always had friends who walk the path into the light with me as I reassemble the fragments of my kaleidoscope to find new and beautiful images just a turn away.

We all have shards and fragments to deal with in our realities. It is up to you to reassemble those floating bits and pieces into an enticing new possibility.

A lover in fragments

2011-04-19T13:15:00.002+10:00

I realised this morning that a lover exists only in fragments, a dozen or so if the romance is new, and a few a thousand after a few years together. Out of those fragments our heart constructs an entire person. We create the person we wish them to be. The less we know of them, the more we love them. The converse is also true... the more fragments you have, the clearer the image. It is only then, that you really know who they are. If you still love them then it is real.

I am the Light Keeper

2011-03-23T17:04:00.001+11:00

It is a violent storm. The pummelling rain, driven by a howling wind lashes against the monolithic tower perched on the cliff face which drops into the dark expanse of the ocean whipped into a frenzy by the gale. I’m exhausted and breathless from running the seemingly endless spiral of stairs to reach the light. I’m drenched to the bone and my hair is plastered against my face. My frozen fingers are grappling with the lens and the strobe. I’m desperately swinging the light into the darkness as I peer intently through the storm battered windows… looking … and then I wake up in a panic.

I have had this recurring dream for the last few nights and I am confounded by it. I have dredged my subconscious memory trying to find what could potentially have triggered this dream but I have come up empty handed. I have not visited any lighthouses recently or watched any films featuring a lighthouse, so I am at sixes and sevens with this one on a purely cognitive plane. But today, I have been thinking more deeply about this dream and what it means. What is my subconscious voice trying to tell me so desperately that it has me waking up in a cold sweat gasping for breath?

Perhaps this lighthouse is an extended subconscious metaphor of some sorts. Perhaps it is worthwhile exploring the metaphor… In my dream the lighthouse is anchored on a mountain – with a terrifying sheer drop to the sea below. It stands alone in the face of the storm, seemingly impervious to the fierce winds and turbulent seas. Perhaps the lighthouse is a metaphor for inner strength or an inner spiritual guide desperately directing the lost ship to a safe port of call, a Harbour of Tranquility.

A lighthouse seems to epitomise loneliness and solitude – but isn’t it ironic that it is precisely in times of utter loneliness that we become intensely aware of how connected we are to others? This tall structure seems so solid and unmoving, personifying stability and constancy in the face of extreme adversity. There is an element of defiance and deliberateness in a lighthouse that appeals to the romantic in me.

The lighthouse has a singularity of purpose… to shine the light into the darkness. Night and day, in any weather, the lighthouse shines its light in every direction – 360 degrees – illuminating the safe harbour to travellers at sea or on land. When fog shrouds the beacon, it still shines its light and sounds a fog horn to ensure that all those in range get the message. The light itself is a warning, attracts attention and guides. The light shines in all directions and shines for all equally.

Perhaps the light is the fiery force of learning. The strobe of it can burn through preconceived notions I have about life like a veld fire on the African savannah consumes everything in its path. It is only when the smoke clears and the fog has lifted that the opportunity for growth becomes apparent.

Perhaps the light blinking through the fog is guiding me to see a part of myself or the world I had not understood fully. Perhaps the light is unconditional love which I offer desperately to the ship lost at sea. The beam of unconditional love falls on all - pirate, pilgrim and shipwrecked souls alike. Its rays are available without limitation or condition.

Come to think of it, the lighthouse does not demand that travellers pay heed to its warning. It does not uproot itself and stride into the ocean to drag the unwilling vessel to safety. It respects others to follow their own spiritual paths and live with the consequences of their seemingly foolish decisions. I wish I were more like a lighthouse so that I would not be discouraged or feel that I served no purpose if my light were ignored. It keeps shining its light because eventually someone will notice and will find a safe port of call. That is true faith.

The storm in my dream is hurricane-like in its force and destructive power – a mother of a storm. Perhaps my subconscious is echoing the wisdom of the old proverb that “the darkest hour is nearest the dawn”. Isn’t it usually the last part of a voyage on a perilous coast line that is particularly challenging? It is at the fulcrum of emotional turmoil, teetering on the edge of a steep cliff face, that the winds subside and the crisis wanes to find clarity and understanding we have been searching for so desperately.

Intrinsic to a lighthouse is the concept of vision and seeing beyond the immediate storm battered reality. It is an apex of sight extended in all directions seeing so much further than before seeking the light. A light seeker – etymologically this harkens back to the Semitic stem of the word for “menorah” derived from “minaret” – the root of which (“nar”) denotes “light” or “to shine”.

I do not think I am the lighthouse – I am the light keeper. I cannot force others to accept my light but I know that some of the light falls on me too. We are all beacons of light – like lighthouses, we all look different. Some are taller than others, some are more attractive than others but like lighthouses, we each have distinct patterns of light which are unique to us. Our outward appearance does not reflect what light we have to give on the inside.

I think my exhaustion in the battering storm is driven by a feeling of unworthiness and unlovability. Sometimes we are giving our love away and end up hurting because our cup is bone dry - mainly because we don't demand the same in return. Perhaps the lighthouse is about tough love. The lighthouse keeper leaps with joy for each ship which is led to safety. Similary, the lighthouse keeper cannot accept responsibility for those ships who do not look up to see the light and run aground. It stands its ground regardless. Perhaps I can only take responsibility for the light that I put out. Sometimes the fog of indifference is denser than the illumination of the strobe but it doesn't mean that the strobe is meaningless or weak. Perhaps I have had enough stress, frustration, and obstacles without going on a wild goose chase and chasing rabbits down holes for answers. Perhaps the dream is about anchoring myself in the rock of wisdom and doing constant maintenance on the purity of the light I transmit. After all, a fallen lighthouse is more dangerous than a reef. For now, the love in my eyes and the smile on my face will be the strobe in my lighthouse which I pray will guide you home to a harbour of tranquility.

Just for today

2011-02-23T16:58:00.002+11:00

You are some sort of magical creature. I can try to cut you out of my everyday routine but I cannot seem to lock you out of my heart. I miss you so terribly today. So, I wish for a quiet moment - just once...

I wish you would run your fingers through my soul. I wish you could see some light in me, just for a moment. Look a bit deeper - peep through the keyhole of my soul. Just for today. Just once, I wish you could feel exactly what I feel, believe what I believe, perceive as I perceive, look, experience, examine, and just once.... see into my heart and understand me and perhaps you may realise just how much I loved you.

Wear your dignity, not his shame

2011-02-22T09:43:00.001+11:00

I am deeply disturbed by acts of violence – especially when they are perpetrated against women and defenceless children. Recently, I listened in horror to the account of the CBS journalist who was gang raped in Egypt and the self-righteous and misogynistic responses of some people in the media. She is a celebrity and the world has reacted in outrage. However, I am aware of another victim, someone’s mommy, wife, daughter and friend who has been brutalised too.

While I do not know her personally, I am deeply moved by what has happened to her. I have been thinking of her and stand appalled at the devastation one person can cause in the soul and life of another with out a second thought.

So this blog is just a thought from one stranger on this side of the planet to a broken and shattered woman on the other side of the globe…

Dearest girlfriend

I do not know you and I cannot profess to begin to imagine the heartache you must be carrying inside of you right now. While I don’t know you and the details of your particular circumstances, I understand the spirit of a woman and it is with the deepest respect and compassion that I write this. I have been thinking of you and trying to put myself in your shoes. I am deeply disturbed by what has happened to you.

I have never been raped and that is only because I have been lucky, not because I am a better person than you or because of anything you did that I haven’t. Don’t allow this monster to take a way your righteous anger. If you feel that you have done something somehow to deserve what happened to you, you are allowing him to keep hurting you, even though he is absent. You were the victim – not the perpetrator. Too often, one hears that women try to find the fault within themselves for what happened to them and in a sense they assume the role of the perpetrator. You were in the wrong place at the wrong time and became the victim of a predator who uses sex to feel a sense of power over women which he obviously cannot get otherwise. He is a coward. Blaming yourself only empowers him.

I wonder if you feel guilty that you did not fight harder and wonder if you think that you had, it may not have happened? Please don’t. Fear can paralyse you and there is a huge difference between submission and consent. If you did not verbally express desire to have sex with this man, then you definitely did not consent to the act. Please do not confuse the two. In some cases submission without consent is the only way to save your life. You should not feel shame or guilt over being the victim. You have been brutalised and you definitely did not ask for it.

If it were me, I think I would feel deeply embarrassed as if everyone knew what had happened to me. I think it is natural – we feel violated in such an intimate way – that we unwittingly wear a badge of shame that is not ours to wear. Too often, I think we are too worried about what people may think or say about us. Please try to focus on yourself and your own healing. Please don’t pin his shame to your sleeve. It is not yours to wear.

I feel such rage at the devastation that such an act of violence can have on a woman and her family. There is no justification for what he has done. Please, please do not allow him to minimise your femininity and your beauty. Please channel your outrage and your anger outward – at him. Please do not inflict it on yourself or get trapped in the abyss of self-recriminations. You have so much to fight for. You are worthy. You are beautiful. You are a mom. You are a woman who has the right to say NO. What he did to you was deplorable and debased. But what happened was as a result of HIS actions and his choice – it is not a reflection on you or who you are. There is so much more to you than a woman who has been brutalised.

I so hope and pray that you will look in the mirror and see beauty, grace and dignity there. You are a survivor. You have survived many women’s worst nightmare. I pray that with time you will find the resilience you need to stand up and fight for your future. You did fight him – even if your cry was silent and your resistance futile. You did fight and you still are. You have not lost your dignity, he preyed on your vulnerability and your fear.

I pray that you will find the inner strength to get up each morning and face the world with pride. You ought to. You have conquered. You may be hurting but you have conquered. I wish for you so much love and understanding from those closest to you. I hope that you will have understanding silences because sometimes words become superfluous and obsolete. I pray that those closest to you will allow you the space and time to deal with your emotional trauma and not compound it by making you cope with theirs.

I hope that you are hugged when you need to be hugged and told that you are loved. I hope that you will again find a way to combat the fear and do the mundane things in life without looking over your shoulder. I hope that the eidetic memory will leave you soon, so that you are not haunted by the event and reliving it every night. I wish for you many nights’ peaceful rest in the loving embrace of your husband. I hope that your marriage and family will be your sanctuary. Allow them to care for you and love you. More than anything, I wish for you to find your inner voice and defy what this man has done to you and your loved ones. I pray for you to find a means to channel your heartache, rage and anger positively.

You are a beautiful and dignified woman and a mom whose children look up to her with love and appreciation. Focus on that. More than anything, I hope you will not allow this gutless non-entity of a man to keep violating your mind or to wreck your marriage. I wish for you good friends who will walk this path with you and be there for you in your darkest hours. Above all, please fight for your survival and your healing.

Please claim what is rightfully yours… your right to life, happiness and love.

Lots of love from Sydney

CornflowerBlue

The Angel in the Marble said "Sawubona"

2011-02-11T16:19:00.001+11:00

"I saw an angel in the marble and I carved until I had set him free." - Michelangelo Bunarotti

I travel to work by train every morning. While sipping my cappuccino this morning, I watched as strangers boarded the train and noticed a few familiar faces. Oddly enough, even though I smiled at the familiar faces, they did not acknowledge my silent greeting. I was pondering this phenomenon of detachment when I recalled one of my first lessons in conversational Zulu. I’m a child of Africa, hatched under the African sun and have always thought the Zulu greeting to be truly beautiful. When you greet someone in Zulu with “Sawubona”, it literally means “I SEE you”. The appropriate response “Ngikhona”, translates into English as “I am here”.

Intrinsic in this greeting is the notion that “until you saw me, I did not exist”. By recognising and seeing each other, we come into existence. This is echoed in the Zulu proverb, “Umuntu ngumuntu ngabanthu” which means a person is a person because of other people. This triggered thoughts about a recent conversation. Sadly, I have felt unseen and unacknowledged by someone who is really very important to me.

As I listened to the criticism during a recent conversation, my heart was aching to hear the “Sawubona” which would acknowledge me - my wholeness somehow – somewhere between the lines, but I didn’t. All the while my heart thumped “I am here. I am here. I am here.” I felt minimised and reduced to a few negative traits and flaws. As the criticism was handed down, a part of me stopped dead in my tracks. One of the blows hit a faultline that runs very deep – right down to my core and split me open, like the chisel of a sculptor splits a block of marble if it strikes a vein in the rock. It split me open with the same stunned silence after a massive explosion. It leaves you dazed for a few seconds. It was in that silence that I heard her. The angel in the marble. She bellowed at me from my core – “I AM HERE! I AM WHOLE! THERE IS SO MUCH MORE TO ME! LOOK AT ME!!!” I felt her roar in defiance and in anger which is generally pain that has become too much to handle. I felt her rise up and beat against the walls of my heart begging to be acknowledged. I thought for a moment that I was not the only one who had heard her and feeling that defiance brought me to tears that flowed unabashedly down my face. They were tears of extreme hurt and anger. How is it that someone who claims to love you, can hurt you more deeply than any stranger ever could? In the stunned silence the sobs subsided, I stopped fighting the hurt, and am not fighting to hold on anymore. I felt my soul shudder like a child does after a bout of crying and looked inward.

I thought of Michelangelo’s words about his sculptures “I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free” and I realized how profoundly true it was of this situation. That day, I realized that there is indeed an angel trapped inside of me – in this humble block of marble there is more to me than you are seeing in front of you and she is screaming for release and to be acknowledged. Michelangelo said that in each block of marble he could see the statue as plain as though it were standing before him. All he had to do was liberate it from the rough marble walls imprisoning it so that he could reveal it to others. What a wonderful man he must have been. I so wish you could look deeper and see the angel in me. Unacknowledged, pain can erode your soul from the inside out – like an incessant dripping wears away at the limestone to create a large vacuous cave inside. It is from that cavernous hollow that the echo of despair and self-doubt becomes the background noise for every conscious moment.

Marble is an unforgiving medium – mistakes and damage cannot be undone except by changing the design. A single blow made with the chisel angled incorrectly, can crack a block of marble. The same is true for a human spirit. I am the marble – the primordial quantum soup of endless potential. Just like the marble, I hold the form of every thought and as I intend or visualize, the angel in me is revealed. I have heard her and now I am chipping away at the marble to free her. I’m chipping away at the fear, worry, sadness, feelings of worthlessness, and unlovability so that the inner angel can emerge.

I realize that a very special person passed briefly through my life and that person was me. I need to return to her. I am only human and flawed but I am perfect as I am. I have always endeavoured to be your most loyal friend, a caring person, someone you can count on, dependable, fun and loving. I have always been a giver and have demanded little in return. But I realized, I have not been any of those things to myself. I realize that I will need determination on this journey. I have gathered my chisels and I have started chipping. I have to stay on course, grip the wheel and keep at it.

I will win this battle, one chip at a time and I will have cuts and bruises along the way. I am not a master carver. I have been found wanting - rejected because the block of marble is substandard. Isn’t it ironic though, that the block of marble Michelangelo used for the monumental David, was rejected by the quarry master as being flawed and unsuitable. Michelangelo disagreed. He took what others considered the consolation prize and discovered something truly beautiful because he was prepared to look deeper than the superficial reality. I only wish you would really SEE the wholeness of me.

Perhaps someday, I will hear you say, “Sawubona” and I may or may not answer “Ngikhona”.

I wish I were a Dandelion

2011-01-21T15:36:00.002+11:00

I got a TomTom GPS as a gift a year ago. I find it indispensible when driving in Sydney – especially in the city which seems to be a confounding maze at times. Unfortunately, there is no magical GPS in life – there is no Google map or directions on the road to self-discovery and self-actualisation. There are no directions which tell you which fork in the road will be more complicated down the line and which will be fraught with troubles and roadworks. There is no way of knowing which road to take to reach your destination sooner and which ones will end in a cul-de-sac. Too often, in the past I have found myself at extremely confusing intersections in my life or on an endless roundabout – going round and round in circles, uncertainly procrastinating, not knowing which exit to take when.

Sometimes, a U-turn is necessary even in the face of oncoming traffic even if it goes against the grain completely. At other times, a wrong turn or detour can lead to some new discoveries and life lessons which I would never have learnt if I hadn’t ventured there.

There have been times in my life when the light has been RED –a brightly lit warning – and I have wanted to throw caution to the wind with reckless abandon and run the red light. At other times, I have stood still at a green light because I was not ready to go or to move forward. I have lost my way at times but I have had wonderful people in my life who have helped to light the beacons on my journey. Some of those beacons will never be doused.

I have been mulling over this for a few weeks now – given that a new year seems to augur a new beginning with a hint of a promise of a new chapter in life. I have been hesitant to write down anything on the blank page until I knew what I had to say lest I jinx it somehow. I have taken time out from recent events to assess where I am right now – my internal GPS was searching for the satellite signal to find my co-ordinates. I figured, once I know where I am, I can figure out where to go.

Recent events and time has brought about a change in me. I have altered course and done a U-turn to find my way back to my centre – the unembellished essence of who I am and what I am. I am just a human being – a woman - flawed but one of a kind. Irrespective of others’ expectations, I am who I am and I have to live my life by my own compass. I am an idealist, sentimental and nostalgic at times. I have seen a lot, felt a lot and bled a lot in the last year. But I have taken measures to stop the bleeding and am trying to grow a thicker skin so that I don’t bruise so easily. My trust is something to be earned but I do believe in compassion, forgiveness and kindness. I will not let the world or individuals warp me bitter.

Reality can be an ugly concrete jungle at times. When a rainbow appeared after a storm recently, I concluded that reality is more like a hologram of consciousness which allows us to move through linear time and experience the full gamut of emotions in the hope of distilling our essence of being human. I reckon life is to be lived in metaphorical terms. The world around us is laced with metaphors to help us bridge the gap when our internal GPS fails. When you think about it, we are all just sparks of light and energy spiralling our consciousness into a physical form to learn our karmic lessons before we return to the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow in the alchemy of time. The harvest of what we learn is in the intangibles – a little bit of stardust – a portion of the rainbow we have clutched in our hands along the way.

So what lies over the rainbow or at the top of my Jacob’s Ladder? Do dreams come true when you get to Oz (no pun intended)? Rainbows are typically associated with redemption, hope and resilience. I’m hoping that 2011 will be a rainbow year after the devastation of 2010. For a long time I was walking in circles around the hole in the world which remained when he left and which I fell into it at night because I missed him so terribly. But finding the rainbow requires looking up at the sky and not down at gaping abyss in the pavement. It requires turning around and feeling the sun on your back. The turning point was discovering the core of strength within that survives all hurt - that stump of life that remains when you cut everything away.

It means letting go. It means that I don’t stop loving or caring but it means I can’t do it for someone else. It means realising that I cannot control another and admit powerlessness. I think it means trying to make the most of who I am and accepting that I must live my life by my own measure and not others’ expectations. Letting go is not about fixing things but about being supportive. I think it is about fearing less and loving more. I don’t think it means shutting down but it means I stop trying to force outcomes and make people behave in certain ways. It means releasing the resistance to the way things are, for the moment. It means to stop trying to do the impossible – controlling that which I cannot and focusing on the possible – which means taking care of myself with gentleness, kindness and love. I’m not sure, but this is what the needle on my compass seems to be saying. It’s about bouncing back. Like Dandelions.

In the most unwelcoming and harsh environments you will find Dandelions. In the cracks of pavements in the city, in fissures in the tarmac on the side of the road, next to railroad tracks, a Dandelion thrives where most plants don’t have a prayer. I think we should try to live with a Dandelion spirit.

They flourish in acid or alkaline soil, sunny places or shade, dry slopes or damp crevasses. It doesn’t seem to make a difference. They thrive in the most adverse condidtions and can teach us a lot about persistence and survival. There is a spirit of defiance in the Dandelion that I find endearing. In the dreary grey concrete of a pavement the cheery yellow flower of a Dandelion sprouts out in defiance against all odds. They are built to last. They are also very grounded. I hope I have a taproot as strong as that of a Dandelion so that I will be firmly grounded and not easily displaced. It survives terrible winters and many determined gardeners alike.

They also regenerate from their roots. I hope I am able to when I have been cut back to almost nothing. I hope that I will have roots like a Dandelion which will regenerate from scratch and grow anew. I hope that I have the resilience to come back and face the world with a bright sunshiny face after someone has run me over with a lawnmower or attacked me with the intention to destroy. I hope I can stretch my roots deep enough so that the strongest poison cannot reach my soul. In a world of criticism and judgement, I would prefer to see the flower in me when another sees only the weeds.

In this world where uncertainty reigns supreme – Dandelions seem tentatively certain. We can be assured that every year they will grow and thrive. I hope that some day I will have the courage of Dandelions – to thrive on adversity and to nod cheerfully in the spring breeze with my roots firmly planted in the lawn that was sprayed with Dandelion destroyer the day before. I hope to be more free spirited, brave, adventurous like they are. I hope that I too can bring healing and comfort to loved ones as Dandelions spread their seed. I pray that I will appreciate that the important moments in life are not on the calendar. They arrive at the door of my memory unannounced like stray dogs that ambled in to sniff around and simply never leave.

When I thought about what letting go really means, the image of blowing a Dandelion puffball sprang to mind. I remember how I used to love doing that as a child and I realise now how unwittingly I had spread Dandelions far and wide. The seeds released are a letting go and of starting something new. The letting go is a release without any care for where the seeds are heading and whether they will get a hospitable reception when they touch down. It is likely that many of these seeds will fall on hard unyielding ashphalt or concrete and will lie fallow for a long time. The important thing is that eventually, when spring does arrive, every crack in the pavement will have a Dandelion smiling up at the sky. I hope there is some of that Dandelion magic in me.

So, when I find a Dandelion puff ball again, I will blow it and attach a loving thought and a wish to each seed plume. I am not leaving you behind. I’m taking a part of you with me and I trust that I am leaving a part of me behind that may grow in years to come. Letting go, is another way of saying “I love you” without any expectations as I look up to the rainbow to see where my heart went to be healed.

Lessons in Evanescence from a Blue Dragonfly

2010-12-04T00:54:00.000+11:00

“As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame… “ - the opening line of a well-known Hopkins poem surfaced from my foggy memory like a fish coming up for air this morning when I noticed a flash of iridescent blue skimming the surface of the water. A dragonfly was hovering nearby and was only disturbed by some quacking ducks every few minutes.

After having my throat slit (quite literally) to remove a bleeding tumour a week ago, I needed a sanctuary of sorts this morning. So, I packed my picnic blanket and book, bought the largest take away skim cappuccino I could find and headed out to the lake. The pretty young student behind the counter at the coffee shop eyed the wound on my neck surreptitiously and tried to restrain herself from asking. Her colleague was not as polite – he asked if I had been stabbed. I just grinned.

It has been a very traumatic two weeks. When I discovered the lump in my neck, all the pilot lights on my dashboard went out. Total blackout. A nasty sense of foreboding pulled me into a dark abyss of fear, dread and worry. I heard my coping systems shut down one by one – the red lights flashing and a tinny robotic voice wailing its mantra of “System overload. System overload…”

My reality came to a screeching and grinding halt - I came face to face with my mortality and my vulnerability. I realized that I am indeed finite. Fragile. Very human. I discovered that I bleed even when I don’t know it. I’m not sure what scared me more, the uncertainty of waiting to find out what the large lump in my neck was, or the knowledge that it was a bleeding tumour and that the surgeon suspected malignancy. I’m not sure which part was scarier. Then the expenses that came with the crisis still has my budget wailing like a demented banshee. With all of this on my mind, I needed to find some silence. So I headed to the lake.

The dragonfly fascinated me. It is an agile little flyer, darting backwards and forwards, hovering over the mirror of water like a beautiful helicopter. I became increasingly intrigued with my little blue companion. The wings and the body of this little character were iridescent – the shades of blue, indigo and violet alternating as it moved – depending on the angle and the polarization of the light on its wings. I wished it were possible for me to change and show myself in different colours – to be iridescent as a dragonfly. I sat there and wondered if it could be as simple as changing the slant of the mind – to defeat my self-created illusions. I thought that it was a remarkable visual metaphor for the ability to unmask the real self and remove the doubts we cast on our own identities.

The whole notion of unmasking the real person underneath and the ability to discriminate between what is superficial and what is real is what many men lack these days. In a sense my little blue companion became a light bearer for me today. The iridescent hues on his little body and wings are the colours of life, light and love. Perhaps my lesson for today was taught by a humble but magnificent blue dragon fly. As I watched it whizzing around, it wordlessly taught me that I should let my own hues shine. The metaphor fits – the dragonfly’s colours only emerge with maturity as it is able to bend, shift and adapt light in a variety of ways.

Perhaps I am where I am because I haven’t harnessed that skill yet – of showing different hues of my self at different times. If only we all understood that true beauty takes time to develop – it comes with age. The dragonfly’s colours take time to emerge but they are definitely worth the wait because they ultimately reveal the amazing little insect’s inner beauty. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if women were appreciated in the same way instead of being considered past your sell-by date when you hit certain digits on your odometer?

I found myself increasingly fascinated by my little companion – so much so, that I almost forgot to finish my coffee. The lessons I learnt this morning from watching a dragonfly are remarkable. I admired it for its maneuverability – the agility, sense of purpose and adaptability. It is strong and has a sense of chutzpah. It can hover like a helicopter, can fly backwards like a hummingbird, zoom straight up in the air, dart down or flank to either side. It seems to fly effortlessly. Elegance, poise, adaptabilty and grace only come with maturity, don’t they? Isn’t that true for women too?

I watched it skimming across the surface and felt my thoughts and understanding of where I think I am in my life crystallizing and rising to the surface like the bubbles on the surface. Perhaps we should live like dragonflies and allow our deeper thoughts to rise to the surface and look beyond what seems to be our immediate and finite reality. Just as the dragonfly skims the water of thoughts – a murky primordial soup of divinity – I know that I’m the balance keeper between the “little me” and the “actual me” – the one with all the iridescent colours on my soul waiting to develop and waiting to shine. Perhaps we should aim to see as they do.

And they can certainly see well. More than 80% of the dragonfly’s brain is dedicated to sight. It has 360 degree vision – wouldn’t it be awesome if we had 360 degree vision when it comes to our inner selves? Wouldn’t it be marvelous if we were able to see beyond the limitations of our inner selves, into the vastness of the universe and into our own minds?

The metamorphosis of a dragon fly is much more like the emotional life cycle of a human being. Dragonflies live most of their lives as nymphs or immature dragonflies. They only fly for a fraction of their lifespan. Today, the little fellow became not only a bearer of light, but a beautiful reminder that life is about transformation and constant change and that it is fleeting.

The dragonfly spends most of its life on the bottom of the pond as larva but it always rises above that. It emerges from the mud and works its way through the weight of the water and into the sunlight, where it gathers what it needs to unfold and actualize its potential. When it is finally ready, it sheds is shell and flies away from the pond on its lovely rainbow wings. Just like human beings, dragonflies are very sensitive to the winds of life – they too are creatures of the wind. They also get blown off course by unexpected gusts of wind but they are resilient and in my eyes, the little blue dragonfly is a free spirit. It can fly off at any time.

A few switches were flicked this week - aside from abject terror, dread, worry and all the negative ones - relief flooded my soul when the verdict was delivered. Aside from these, I discovered that the power of friendships and love all over again. The value of an unbreakable bond and connectedness was manifest. There were blessings in the adversity. I realised how blessed I am to have wonderful friends to support me when I don't have immediate family near me. Im grateful for my children's love and for a connectedness that I thought I had lost.

Today, this lovely flash of blue represented evanescence, inner strength, indomitability of spirit and light. I realized how fortunate I am to be sitting next to the lake and watching it in wonder. The recent events have been a catalyst for a major internal shift. I’m not sure what the shift is yet but I can feel it. The dragonfly embodies some important lessons on life. Life is indeed some sort of cycle – an endless loop of adversity and blessings which wobbles when it rolls. But the important things are maturity, strength, adaptability, inner beauty and vision. Life is to be lived in the moment with an awareness of who I am, where I am, what I want and what I don’t. It’s about transformation and fulfilling my potential and finding my inner light – flicking the switch and letting it glow as bright as I possibly can.... Above all to live the life I have without regrets like a glorious blue dragonfly.

The Missing Super Bitch Sock, The Uncertainty Principle and My Bifurcation Point

2010-11-20T00:42:00.002+11:00

Today I was confronted with a dilemma which has been plaguing mankind since the village hosier in Chaucer’s day weaved a fine hose – where do all the missing socks go? Why is it that no matter how many socks you have, how careful you are to transfer them directly to the laundry basket when you take them off, directly to the washing machine and then to the tumble drier (immediately next to it) and then directly to the drawer once they are clean, you eventually end up with fewer socks than when you started? Why is there always one single sock that's a completely different colour or pattern or shape than all of the others?

I’m frequently confounded by this – how is it that half of the matched socks disappear but they seem to be replaced with socks which I have never seen before. What happened to my cute Eyore socks and my other Super Bitch sock (a tongue-in-cheek gift from my sister on my 35^th birthday)? Why is it that I have 3 different socks? As I stood there confounded at the tumble drier – I figured the only possible explanation is evolution.

As I stood there staring at three different socks, I became convinced that socks are shapeshifters – they change their appearances to fit a new situation – like the way an old sweater will assume the shape of the person who wears it. Perhaps they figure if they stay the same, we will keep wearing them, wear holes into them only to be discarded. So they change, they develop new shapes and patterns but only in water followed by heat. The other alternative of course is that my tumble drier is a portkey and my missing socks are out there somewhere in a parallel universe where some other woman is shaking her head looking at three odd socks wondering where on earth the Super Bitch sock came from.

Isn’t life like this too? Just when you think you have all your ducks in a row (or all your socks) you discover that things are not what they seem. I blame scientific reductionism – we have all been brainwashed by Isaac Newton. We were raised to believe that the only way to understand something is to break it down into its constituent parts and functions. Newton declared this when he stated that all moving objects moved in mechanistic ways governed by certain laws and principles. His brilliant explanation of gravity persuaded us all to think that everything in life is determined by the laws of cause and effect and that everything in life can be understood by scientific reductionism. While the apple may have fallen on his head, I cannot explain the three mismatched socks and I certainly cannot explain some of the circumstances I find myself in by cause and effect. It also does not explain why people leave you when you give them your heart and soul and vulnerability. In fact, there is nothing more you can give to someone than your complete and utter vulnerability.

This brings me to the Uncertainty Principle. I am beginning to think that some of the basic tenets of quantum physics are far more relevant to our everyday lives than we even begin to realise. I find it amusing that while scientists previously considered matter to be solid – physicists have since discovered that there are in fact no solid particles underlying the structure of any objects which we perceive as solid. What we perceive as solid matter is in fact an assemblage of countless miniscule energy potentials vibrating in relation to each other at incredible speeds. Isn’t that true about so many things in life too? What appears to be is often far from reality.

Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle asserts that a detached objective observation or measurement from outside a subatomic system is not possible. The act of observing affects what is observed. In other words, the observer influences the system which is being studied. The principle asserts that it is impossible to know everything there is to know about a particle with absolute certainly. When you know about one aspect of a particle, you lose information about other aspects of it. Isn’t that true about people too? For example, when you think you are sure someone loves you, you don’t know why; and when you have figured out why they love you, you don’t know if they do.

I know that the quantum world is abstract and mathematical and in some ways a “shadow” world because we can never know it directly by observing it. When we attempt to measure a quantum system or entity, the very act of measuring it, changes the system. If someone says “I love you” and you ask them how much, do they love you less?

I have written before that everything in life seems to be connected somehow – there seems to be an intricate web of invisible strands that holds our existence together. Isn’t if funny that a quantum entity is said to be in every possible state at the same time – called a “superposition” – and upon measurement, it chooses one state – the state that best conforms to the experimental conditions or context at the time. In other words, if you are looking for signs of cancer you will find them. If you are looking for the negative in people, you will bring out the negative in them. Perhaps my socks knew I thought they would be missing and then shape-shifted. The same is true for relationships – perhaps if I was listening and waiting for the other shoe to drop, trust me I am still reeling from the thud. Perhaps I should take a lesson from my Super Bitch sock...

I’m fascinated by this “knowledge” that emerges and change the trajectory of life completely. The chromosomes in a fertilized egg do not carry a final and complete blueprint for the body that will develop. They are just a starting point – potential. As the cells multiply and differentiate, the new cells seem to “know” what functions have to be assumed and they go on to become different types of tissue.

I’m wondering why we don’t have the same superposition in our psyche – why is it that when adversity strikes we don’t always choose the best behaviours when it comes to our thoughts and responses? Where does the synapse misfire? Perhaps it is because we become the observer in our own tragedy and it changes us and the situation. I am wondering if it is not a case of grasping that the experience itself is not who I am but what makes me, in the same way that it is not the crucifixion that counts but the resurrection.

I have fielded another nasty curveball from the outfield this week – albeit on the nose – but I am beginning to accept that change is constant – the only stable reference point in life. Newton also got a ball on the nose – from Prigogine – who coined the term “bifurcation point”.

He found that certain phenomena in chemistry did not fit with Newton’s universal and reductionistic laws. Specifically, he stated that if the energy input increases beyond what a closed simple system can withstand or absorb, the system’s structure becomes disorganized and fluctuates in chaotic ways. The system will either collapse completely or reorganise into a new structure.

As I write this, I wonder if he was not looking at my life…. When external demands exceed the capacity of your coping mechanisms – you are driven to “bifurcation point” – a moment in your life when you will never be the same again. It is here that meltdown occurs – and while today was a total waste of make-up – it may not be a bad thing.

When you reach bifurcation point, if you can avoid being crushed beyond recovery and do your best to bounce back, you will emerge a stronger and more resilient person. I reached my bifurcation point this week with the discovery of a large lump on my neck (perhaps that is where the socks went). As clichéd as it sounds, perhaps chaotic disequilibrium keeps us protean – we keep evolving like the crazy socks that keep morphing into unknown mysterious socks I have not encountered in my laundry basket before (and avoid getting thrown away - clever socks!).

Perhaps that is what this chaotic disequilibrium is all about – reinvention and post traumatic growth. Perhaps I have been too Newtonian in my approach to life – examining it by reducing it to the nuts and bolts and in doing so, I didn’t see that what I thought was solid was in fact nothing but a void of potential. Living life in quantum terms may be the healthier but painful alternative. Perhaps embracing the bifurcation point and the falling apart of all I know and hold dear is necessary for the evolution of the new person – perhaps my Eyore must morph into Super Bitch. Perhaps this total disequilibrium is required to reset me to my default superposition. I’m not really sure. For now, Im still reeling from the impact, searching for my favourite socks, and yearning for the one who has always been able to silence the churning storms around me with a silent hug.

While I am gripped by cold fear and fervently praying that the cells in the lump will choose to be benign, hoping that the Uncertainty Principle can work positively by actualizing what it is I hope for and wish for so fervently, I must let it be. Hopefully it will manifest what I am looking for and not what I fear. In the meantime, perhaps this lump is like the lightning that struck a tree in my forest – it may destroy the tree as it is. But a fallen tree becomes an ecosystem for a whole new range of organisms on the forest floor. It will become a substrate for a host of organisms and will give life. Perhaps I have to lose it all to gain it again. Perhaps that is the Uncertainty principle at work – when you think you have lost it, is when you will find it; and when you think you have it, is when you lose it.

My Torschlusspanik and the Widow's Oil

2010-11-11T00:30:00.001+11:00

My son loves French Toast – with melted cheese for extra calories. This morning, I got up early to make it and as I poured the last few drops of olive oil from the bottle into the pan, I smiled because it was just enough for what I needed. It reminded me of the Biblical account of the widow and her jars of oil. This morning I identified with her as a woman in crisis – although for altogether different reasons. It is funny how the mind wanders when you are doing really mundane things. (I will return to the widow and her oil shortly.)

I thought about the word “crisis” and what it really means. This is where the diachronic language studies switch is flicked and the etymologist in me splutters to life for a while out of sheer curiosity. While reading about the etymology of the word, I stumbled across some gems. We generally tend to think of a crisis as some kind of trouble but interestingly enough the origin of the word points to “a time of decision and judgement”.

The word first appeared in English texts around 1500 and was inherited from Latin which in turn got it from the Greek κρίσις (krisis) < κρίνω (krinō) which denoted “a turning point in a disease” as it was used by Hippocrates and Galen. Our understanding of the word is fairly recent but prior to that it referred to a point in an illness when the patient either took a turn for the worse or improved. The Greek root is said to go back to the Indo-European word meaning which denotes “to discriminate”. I find myself at a particularly curious juncture in my life and am faced with several options and realize that there are some decisions that I have to make.

I stumbled across another gem – Torschlusspanik. This German word which literally translated means “gate-shut-panic” is used to describe a midlife crisis. It denotes the fear of being on the wrong side of a closing gate. The term originated from medieval peasants who were terrified of being locked out when the castle gates were closing when an attack was imminent. I have written about midlife crises a few times and generally in terms of the male ego and their foolish attempts to soothe it.

However, today I realized that I am having my own Torschlusspanik of sorts but not in the conventional sense of the word – no I am not turning into a cougar… In my case, my Torschlusspanik is more about critical life decisions which will forever change the direction of my life.

The notion of crisis as a decision point, is rather comforting. I guess the fact that you have decisions to make implies a measure of control. That brings me back to the widow and her oil. Has your emotional pantry been as bare as Mother Hubbard’s cupboard? I guess the biblical widow arrives on everyone’s emotional doorstep at some point in time.

Don’t you get annoyed when your widow has arrived and everyone tells you it is going to be just fine, that things will work out and be just fine? Isn’t that like putting a band aid on a gaping wound? Then there is the cliché that Time heals all wounds. It doesn’t. All that Time is able to do is to make it more distant, put some space between you and what happened. It doesn’t heal anything. I don’t know how or what it does that does the healing but it certainly isn’t Time.

I just wonder what went through the widow’s mind when Elisha asked her what resources she had in her home. She replied that she had nothing but a little bit of olive oil but it was barely enough to meet her immediate needs. Can you imagine the incredulity of her expression when Elisha told her to collect empty jars from all her neighbours - as many as she could find? The story goes that she and her two sons borrowed jars from her neighbours, took them inside and behind closed doors, filled them to the brim with olive oil from the widow’s jar. The oil kept flowing until the last jar was filled and then it stopped. It was just enough.

This morning when I dribbled the last drops of olive oil into the pan, I realised that a bottle can only contain so much and at some point it will be exhausted. I think human beings are the same – we have a limited capacity for heartbreak and for stress, but do we have a limit in terms of what we can give? Are we finite in terms of our capacity for giving and for loving or are we like the miraculous jar – overflowing with abundance and the ability to give and give and give when your reserve light is glowing red? Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could be as adaptable as oil – to fit our circumstances and crises as oil is able to mould itself into the shape of the bottle? I’m beginning to think that an act of love that fails is just as much a part of the divine as an act of love that succeeds because I wonder if love is not measured by its own fullness rather than by its reception.

I guess it boils down to two things – taking stock of what you have and doing something unusual with what you do have rather than wishing for what you don’t; and secondly taking a leap of faith and giving what is there so that it can morph into something new. Isn’t it sad that too often we allow ourselves to be defined by others’ opinions and value judgements on our sense of worth and our place in this world?

Isn’t it ridiculous that when we find ourselves suddenly at a crossroad or crisis in life, we tend to think of ourselves as having “only this” or “only that”. We define our position and our self worth in terms of our current heartache or crisis. I think we minimise who we are and what we can do because we tend to see our “only-ness”. I think it is this Only-ness syndrome that keeps us trapped in suspended animation. I realised today that I have had the same mindset as the widow – one of “only-ness”. When she was asked what she had, she replied “nothing… only a little bit of oil.”

I realised that all too often women fall into this trap – we give all we have to give and when the relationship lies in ruins at our feet, we believe that we have nothing more to give – as if the failed relationship has confirmed our worst fears about ourselves and we question our lovability.

So there are decisions to be made in this Torschlusspanik of mine.

Some have told me to follow my heart. That is the problem – how can I follow my heart when it is waiting around for the rest of me to make a decision? And decision I reckon is a risk rooted in the courage of being free. Perhaps I have been living my life too much as I-could-have-beens instead of I-tried-to-do’s. I can see that I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I intended to be. I have come to accept that sometimes the ground may shift between my feet and I may lose my footing. I may stumble and when that happens I will naturally grab what is close to me and hold on as tight as I possibly can.

Recently, my emotional larder has been rather Spartan like – much like the widow’s – with only enough oil to keep me going and sometimes not quite sufficient. Today, a precious friend told me what to do with my little bit of oil – empty it out- surrender what you do have and let it go – fill up the empty jars around you that are crying out for some substance.

In a sense all of us become like the widow at some point in our lives – desperate, lost, broken and with no immediate solution to a looming crisis. Elisha listened to her with compassion and understanding and when he asked her what resources she had to work with, she responded by saying she had nothing but a little bit of olive oil in a jar. I think we all tend to do that – see the “nothing but” side of things and in doing so reduce ourselves and our possibilities to “only a little bit of olive oil in a jar”. Think about Moses who replied that he only had his staff when he had to visit the Pharaoh, David had only a slingshot and a few pebbles to defeat Goliath, Samson had a jawbone when he faced a lion, and the disciples had five loaves and a few fishes to feed a multitude. In each case, it required a leap of faith and surrendering the little bit that they had.

Interestingly enough, if you look at the Chinese character for faith “xin” also means “trust”. The Chinese character for faith shows a “Man” (radical at left) standing by his words. So, “stand by your words” is synonymous for trust and faith in Chinese. Making a decision, emptying my oil jar to give me the capacity for filling new empty vessels with abundance, will require a leap of faith, trust and standing by my words.

And the beautiful thing about the story of the widow and the oil, is that the miracle took place behind closed doors. The miracle takes place inside of us. I guess what the caterpillar may consider the end of the world, the master will call a butterfly. As I grow to understand life less and less, I seem to live it more and perhaps the real magic wand lies in the mind…

Dimples and Dark Brown Eyes

2010-11-03T17:34:00.001+11:00

I miss my daughter so much today. I woke up from a dream at 05:00 this morning and I have been thinking about my little girl all morning. I have been blessed with two beautiful children who keep me sane and grounded. I watched my son sleep before I woke him for breakfast, and I realised what a wonderful gift it is to be a mom. Watching him sleep flicked the gratitude switch in a big way this morning. He is the sweetest, gentlest loving boy in the world and I adore him.

Aimee-Leigh is my first child. It was after she had had her first feed that I discovered her dimples – she had wind and suddenly smiled… and deep dimples appeared in both cheeks. It was the most beautiful smile in the world. It made me cry and I remember holding her tight and kissing her all the time. She still has the most beautiful smile in the world – the kind of smile that lights her up from within. She still lights up a room with her smile and I still want to hug her tight.

She is now a beautiful 16 year old girl and in her I see a world of possibilities. There are so many things I miss about her today. I miss the sleepy smile when she stumbles from her room in the morning with her tousled hair, the sound of her giggle, a good morning hug, listening to her squabble with her brother, the thumping music, watching her curl herself up on the couch like a lazy cat, hurrying her up to get ready for work on time, girl talk, shopping and of course her beaming dimpled smile.

I wish at times I could make her see what others see about her. I have watched her look at herself in the mirror and I would do anything to give her the gift of loving herself as much as I do. I would love for her to see her reflection and realise how beautiful and lucky she is to be exactly as she is. I don't ever want her to deprive herself of food, or to twist around and ask whether her bum looks big, to lie awake at night and promise herself that tomorrow she will start a diet. I want her to know that beauty sometimes makes you happy but happiness always makes you beautiful.

I want her to believe in herself and her dreams as I do. I want my girl to learn to listen to her heart and know that her future is determined by the decisions and choices she makes and not necessarily by the risks she may take along the way. I wish for her to allow mystery to have its place in her – not to be turning up every inch of her soul in rigid self-examination, but to leave a little fallow corner of her heart ready for any seed the winds may bring.

We are all broken and wounded in this world but some of us choose to grow strong at the broken places. As we grow up, we learn that even the one person who was never supposed to let you down, probably will. She will have her heart broken probably more than once, and it is harder each time. Similarly, I know she will break hearts too, when she does, I want her to remember how it feels when hers was broken. My Aimee is strong and resilient. She has bounced back from so many heartaches and still has not lost the light in her deep brown eyes.

I wish I could make her immune to peer pressure and to negativity. I would love to make her understand that everyone in the world may have an opinion of her but only she can decide what makes her truly happy as a person. Opinions are exactly that – just opinions. Life is often a process of negotiation. I want her to know that the most powerful tool for winning a negotiation is the ability to get up and walk away from the table without a deal – regardless of who the other party is. She will fight with her friends and will blame a new love for things an old one did. I want her to know that things happen at the right time – not necessarily when we want them to – happy endings cannot come in the middle of a story.

It is not always easy to be a mom – but I wouldn’t change it for anything. I want the world for her and more than anything I want my girl to be happy. I see so much inner beauty, flashes of strong will, brilliance and inner strength in her but more than anything, I love her spirit.

I want the world for her, but much more than that - I want her to be happy and to know that being happy doesn’t mean that everything is perfect. It means that you have decided to look beyond the imperfections and can find contentment regardless. A happy person is not a person in a set of certain circumstances, but rather someone with a certain set of attitudes about their particular circumstances. You don’t have to change the world to be happy – it might get your name recorded in history books but it is much more important to write your name in the lives and hearts of others.

If I had my sweet sixteen-year-old brown eyed girl with me today, I would hold her tight, smell the sunlight in her hair and tell her how beautiful she is – inside and out. I hope that she is able to enjoy the little things in life today – to take pleasure in small and seemingly insignificant things. I am so very proud to be her mom and of the woman she is becoming. She is stubborn, spirited, annoying as hell at times but with beautiful heart that tempers her independent spirit and warms my heart.

So today, on the dashboard of my life, my girl’s light burns brightly. The gratitude switch has been flicked, along with pride and hope but more than anything, the longing fuse is blinking intermittently. I cannot wait to have her home. She and her brother are the centre of my world. She is, and always will be the beautiful baby I cradled in my arms when she smiled at me the first time and I lost my heart forever.

My Mystic Bell and the Angel's Wings

2010-11-02T16:40:00.000+11:00

This morning I opted to wear one of my favourite pieces of jewellery – my mystic bell pendant - an Indonesian mystic bell in a hinged sterling silver filigree cage. Mystic bells like mine are designed after the ancient Crotal bell form – which is considered the oldest form of bell if current archaeological records are anything to go by. Caged crotal bells like mine have been made in Indonesia for more than two hundred years. Apparently the King of Bali wore caged bells with diamonds, rubies, emeralds and sapphires to adorn his uniform. Mystic Crotal bells have always had a spiritual significance to the people of the region. Indonesians believe these bells are connected directly to the Buddhist and Hindu spiritual realm. The direct connection of bells to the spiritual realm is as old as Time itself.

I love this piece not only because it is different but because I love the soothing gentle jingle of the bell. I was looking at it on the train while contemplating some other issues in life this morning and it struck me how prevalent bells in some shape or form are in our lives. They are everywhere! I was alerted to it by an annoyed cyclist who rang his bicycle bell at me furiously this morning to get me to move out of his way.

Think about it – bells announce that someone is at the front door, alarm clocks wake us with a ringing sound, mobile phones ring to tell us that there is a call waiting, you ring the bell for service in a hotel and even my microwave has a chime! Bells are rung at funerals and weddings and to start off a new round of fighting in a boxing ring.

Bells signify the beginning and ending of something. Bells summon people to events or inform students that the lesson is about to start and that they have to hurry to class. Bells are rung to summon worshippers to prayer or to warn us not to cross railroad tracks. They also soothe – like the tinkling of chimes in the wind. In traditional Feng Shui bells are associated with prosperity and protection. Even belly dancers use small bell-like finger cymbals called zills to enhance the music and dance.

Then there is Christmas and the annoying “Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way…” which seems to be the carol of choice in shopping malls. Even Santa’s reindeer have bells attached to let children know he’s coming.

Our Sleigh in Ramsau

A few years ago, Handsome and I went to Austria in December and spent Christmas day in a ski resort in Ramsau. We went on a horse drawn sleigh ride around the Dachstein and one of my fondest memories of that day is the jingling of the bells on the reins and the sleigh as we raced along the snowy landscape in the crisp mountain air – sipping schnapps as we went along. It was the most beautiful Christmas day I have ever experienced. I recall that there was a rather eccentric Jewish man who resembled Santa Claus with his flowing white beard. The more schnapps he drank, the more jolly he got and the louder he sang Christmas carols in a rich baritone voice. The sound of my mystical bell sounds so much like the bells on that sleigh. I would give anything to be able to go back to that day.

Perhaps our attraction to the bells stems in part from the sense of unity we experience while listening to the ringing of a bell. The tones of a bell vibrate through the clothes, skin, blood and molecules of its listeners simultaneously. It is a collective experience that subconsciously draws us together.

Think of the Liberty Bell which announced the first public reading of the Declaration of Independence in the United States. It helped unify the Colonists on a vibrational level down to their very molecules, and according to some sound/healing researchers, down to the level of creation. Creation stories from around the world include passages metaphorically describing sound or vibration as a creative force. When we create sound here on Earth, we are honouring that first creation.

If you have ever been to Westminster Abbey, Notre Dame, Chartres or any of the major cathedrals in Europe when the bells are ringing, you will understand what I mean. You feel it ringing in your bones. It is majestic, mystic and indescribably beautiful. I reckon bells are symbolic of the harmony existing in society. It acts as a medium between heaven and earth, bells and especially their clappers, represent communication and suspension between humans and God.

My little mystic bell may be small and have a soft jingle but it is felt and heard. It is not only an idiophone but also an ideophone – the sound of it is enough to take me back to the snow capped peaks of Ramsau, gluhwein, fresh mountain air and a wonderful sense of contentment I felt for the first time in many years. My little bell is special – to me anyway. Besides, as the adage goes – “Every time a bell rings, an angel gets his wings.”

I pray my angel hears my bell and spreads his wings...

God has a sense of humour

2010-11-02T00:06:00.000+11:00

I vividly remember my first visit to Paris and the first time I stood at the Place de l’Etoile (which has been renamed Place Charles de Gaulle) - the crazy intersection surrounding the Arc de Triomphe. There are no less than 12 straight avenues which intersect at this point – hence the historical name which translates as Square of the Star. The apparent absence of distinct white lines to regulate the flow of traffic, with ten cars abreast seems like madness to me. Crossing seems like definite suicide – hence the subway for pedestrians. Today the Arc de Triomphe and the Place de l’Etoile seems to be a fitting metaphor for another very complicated crossroad in my life.

Sometimes life seems a lot like the Place de l’Etoile to me. There is so much hustle and bustle and flow of activity around me and the disturbing thought occurs to me that unless I know where I am going – I am sure to get lost if I take the wrong avenue. Trust me, I know – I’ve been lost in Paris and ended up in the Pigalle district!

And life is never simple is it? I really think God has a strange sense of humour at times. Why not just place me at an intersection with just four intersecting avenues where the options are limited and therefore simpler: A, B, C or D? But no – life is more fun when it is has a buffet of complications – a pastiche of no less than 12 intersecting and intricate issues and avenues (A to J?) which is enough confuse the hell out of a simple-minded woman like me.

I wish it were possible to disambiguate life and people as we are able to do in computational linguistics in which word sense disambiguation aims at identifying which sense of a word is used in a sentence when the word has multiple meanings. Wouldn’t it be useful if we could use the same process to figure out what people are actually saying when their words and actions are infused with a variety of dissonant meanings? Wouldn’t it be bloody marvellous if we could devise an algorithm to figure people out? But I guess it would come with its own caveat – people can speak in metonymic terms which screws up the whole discourse all over again.

In fact, people are far too much like their words – infinitely variable and very context sensitive. Just like words, people do not easily divide up into distinct or discrete sub-meanings. I find myself empathising with the bleary eyed lexicographer in the dungeons of a library, who frequently discovers in corpora loose and overlapping word meanings; discovers their standard or conventional meanings extended, modulated and exploited in a bewildering variety of ways. The same applies to people… I have come to the conclusion that some people are simply impossible to pin down and figure out. Even when you think you know them better than anyone on the planet – trust me, you haven’t scratched the surface to the Pandora’s Box within.

Which begs the question – can you ever truly know someone – who they are, deep down - there where the Disprin dissolves?

I am beginning to think that it is not entirely possible. We are all palimpsests – ancient scrolls of parchment which have been written upon twice, the first writing having been erased to make place for the second. The first writing is our usually tormented and twisted childhoods, past experiences, memories, defeats, victories, history. The second – seems to be like the etch-and-scratch magic slates we used to play with as children – with what seems to be written on the surface so easily removed by sleight of hand. And the text keeps changing, the discourse is discordant, fluid and at times meaningless. And unfortunately, in many instances the first layer of writing is etched too deeply to be erased entirely. It still rises to the surface in the most annoying and inconvenient ways and no matter how hard you try to erase it, it permeates the second layer and any other one after that.

I have found myself with the same sense of bewilderment and exasperated confusion as the lexicographer in the dungeons of the library. Unpredictability, instability and chaos seems to be the order of the day these days. Nothing seems to fit the way it should and as soon as I think I have the corpora down pat, I find another layer of meaning to this tear inducing mascara haemorrhaging onion of life! Lately, my favourite three letters of the alphabet are W.. T…F. With good reason. Even the calendar agrees after Tuesdays…

Lately, I tend to feel like the confused tourist at the foot of the Arc de Triomphe all too often. I look around me at the bewildering ever metamorphosing life I have and sometimes I wonder which of the twelve traffic lanes I should jump into first. The challenge these days is merely crossing the street – without getting hit by a bus or worse. Perhaps I should try to Forrest Gump my way to the other side.

It seems like such a fitting image for me today – at the centre of the chaos is the Arc de Triomphe which stands as a spectacular monument in honour of those who fought and died for

France

in the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. The names of the French victories and French generals are inscribed on the inner and outer surfaces of this spectacular monument.

Aren’t we all a similar monument to our own victories and casualties as we struggle through life? I am a monument to what I have survived and conquered but like the Arc de Triomphe, the names of the casualties are inscribed on the inner walls and the apparent emphasis on Victory belies the sadness of loss and death entombed within. Underneath its spectacular vault, lies the forlorn Tomb of the Unknown Soldier with the flame that is kept burning day and night. I too have a Tomb for my Unknown Soldier and he too is unaware of the devastation he has left in his wake. Like the fallen hero beneath the Arc de Triomphe, he is blissfully unaware of the loving care that is taken to tend to the lantern – to keep the flame burning.

I recall watching the crazy maelstrom of traffic at this bizarre intersection for a while and I have come to realise that there are two options here: step defiantly and confidently into the lane of oncoming traffic (in the face of disaster defiance is often the only recourse) or find the subway – it is there – you only need to read the signs to find it. Then again, my French has always been just enough to get me into trouble. Perhaps that explains it. So, for now, I’m scouring the landscape for signposts which will lead me to the magical subway to get me from my point A the elusive point D or was it E, or F or…. Dammit!