| Tuesday, 30 September 2008 |
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This has been an incredibly busy and exciting week for me, but I don't want to talk about that right now. This wee entry is all about you. Yes, I'm talking about you. Wherever you are, reading this, I'm thanking the universe for putting you in this world, because you are incredibly special.
There are currently billions of people populating this beautiful world we live on. Many have come before us, and hopefully, a whole lot more will follow. But, consider this, and this is where it gets really amazing, of all those people who have ever lived, and will live, not only on our good Earth, but anywhere else, in this entire universe – there is only one you.
You are utterly unique, and precious. No one will ever be like you, think like you, or perceive the universe in exactly the same way. You have never happened before, and will never happen again. What you are, exactly the way you are, at this precise moment in time, has never been before, and will cease to be when you are gone.
Understand and embrace how very special you are. You are a portion of the divine uniquely fashioned and sent forth to learn and understand and contribute in a way no other soul can. You have a simple, and yet vial purpose; to be yourself. That's it.
Be yourself. No one else can. No one else can be what you are, know what you know, do what you can do. No one. You are as singular as a snowflake, as precious as a flawless rare gem, an irreplaceable, invaluable part of creation.
You totally rock.
We need you. We need your insights, your wisdom, your talents. We need what only you can bring to this world. You are here now because you chose to be, and you have much to teach us. We thank you for joining us, and we are all that much the better because you are here.
You are loved. Believe this, and open your heart and mind to all the infinite possibilities and the abundance available to you. The universe wants to bless you, to fulfill your every desire, to help you to prosper so you can give, and grow and add the fullness of your special gifts to the tapestry of creation. The singular thread of your life is vital to that weaving, and will add such wonderful colour and depth and complexity, shining into eternity.
Join us in the dance celebrating you. You are just so…awesome. I'm totally blown away.
Woo hoo!
You are perfect. You are eternal. You are amazing. Truly one of a kind.
And, you are here. That has to be the most amazing thing of all. You, here, now.
What are the odds? And yet, here you are.
Thank God.
Take a bow, give yourself a hand, and go out there and knock 'em dead, kiddo.
I know you can do it.
Hugs and kisses from your biggest fan,
Phoenix |
posted by The White Dove Partnership @ 22:33  |
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| Saturday, 20 September 2008 |
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I apologize for the hiatus but life has been kinda keeping me busy for the past week. But it's all good, so I don't really mind. But anyway, back to our regularly scheduled blog, already in progress…
I'm not alone, I'm sure, in having gone through some rough financial patches in the past. The time I'm thinking about, however, about eighteen years ago, was particularly rough; after having left my husband I found myself on my own in Winnipeg with a newly diagnosed autistic two year old and her twelve year old sister, forced to try and provide for both of them with social assistance and not much else. As you can well imagine it wasn't exactly a picnic; although I did my best we went through some pretty lean times, especially during the 'adjustment period' while I was learning how to live on a lot less than I'd previously been accustomed to.
Those days are long behind me now, both my girls grown up, while only one of them gone. One thing I'm very proud of, my kids never missed a meal, no matter how tight things got. I have, on occasion, but they never did. Once, though, I was afraid I was not going to be able to keep the promise I made to them, and to myself they would never go without, when I found myself with bare cupboards and not a cent to my name the day before I was going to receive my monthly allotment, and then something really amazing happened not only enabling me to feed my kids that day, but it taught me a valuable and lasting lesson affecting my perceptions and the way I would view reality from that moment forward.
I don't remember where I was coming home from, but all I was thinking about was 'how am I going to feed my kids dinner tonight' when I looked down and right in front of me in the middle of the sidewalk was a five dollar bill. My world instantly went from desolate to triumphant; I scooped my prize and headed back out for the grocery store. Okay, five dollars wasn't a lot to work with, but it was more than enough for my purposes. I only needed to get through 'til the next day and it wouldn't have been the first time Hamburger Helper was the entrée on offer.
I continued on my way, very happy and grateful for the windfall. I considered myself extremely fortunate and blessed, but as I walked I started thinking about what had actually happened here. That money hadn't just appeared on the sidewalk out of thin air, in order for me to have found it; someone had to have lost it. My blessing was someone else's misfortune.
Yeah, I know, we're only talking five dollars here, but in that moment five dollars was a tremendous amount of money to me, and extremely important. It was literally the difference between my children going to bed hungry that night – and not. I put myself in the place of the person who'd lost it and fervently hoped it had not meant as much to them as it did to me. That their losing it didn't mean they'd been left with nothing.
I didn't want to gain at another's expense, plain and simple. And I didn't want to take without giving something back, even if it was only my gratitude. There was no possible way I could pay them back, or return the money to them if they needed it. I'd also never know if the loss had harmed them. So, I did the only thing I could think to do, I felt I was obligated to do. I thanked them for helping me, and hoped the universe would bless and recompense them for that money and more.
Still walking, still thinking. Why had what happened, happened? Why would the universe bless me at the cost of someone else? Did I deserve this money more than them? Did I need it more? I thought that was too simplistic a way of looking at it, and yet couldn't escape the feeling I was missing something important.
A single event. A five dollar bill lost and found. My gain, someone else's misfortune. Good for me, bad for them. It couldn't be both, and yet it would seem to be, depending on your perspective.
Maybe it was neither.
That's when I got it.
The five dollar bill was potential, plain and simple. An opportunity. Neither good nor bad. It simply was. How that event was perceived by the people it affected, how they thought about it, and what they did as a result of experiencing it – that's what made it 'good' or 'bad'.
Depending on your perspective.
Let me explain what I mean by opportunity. The universe knew I had a need, and it selected someone to supply it. By causing them to lose that money – an event they probably perceived as 'negative' – I was blessed. But…I wasn't the only one, because although my unknown benefactor probably didn't realize it, what the universe gave them by causing them to lose that money was an opportunity to do me - someone they would probably never meet – good.
They 'gained' an opportunity to bless me. Although they would never know it, the universe did. And…so did I.
So, because I recognized this, thanked them and blessed them for their unconscious generosity, they really didn't 'lose' anything. I'm sure they were recompensed because believe me; I spent most of that day blessing the heck out of them.
My point is everything happens for a reason, it's neither good nor bad, it's simply what it is; how you respond to it, colours it from your perspective. We are sent what we need to learn and grow, and what we manifest through our own thoughts and actions. We are the ones who put the value judgements on what happens to us and decide whether it is 'good' or 'bad'.
Naturally we tend to think of pleasant things that make us happy as 'good' and stuff that doesn't as 'bad', but if you can get past that, especially for the bad stuff, and view everything as simply an opportunity to learn because, I just demonstrated, even stuff we think of as 'bad' – really isn't – if you see it from a different perspective.
More on this next time, but for now, here's a thought; if you lose something, rather than getting all annoyed and angry with yourself, try thanking the universe for the opportunity it's given you to do someone else some good. Maybe what's passed out of your hands could really help someone else. Then let it go with thanks, and wait for something even better and brighter to come back to you.
It will, you know.
Blessings
Phoenix |
| posted by The White Dove Partnership @ 15:32 |
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| Friday, 12 September 2008 |
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Last Tuesday, while on the way to the airport to meet Shannon I stopped at a grocery store to pick up some stuff she would need. It was a place I formerly frequented when we used to live in that part of town, but as we haven't for over a year, it's been awhile since I last walked into the place.
Paying for my purchases required me to whip out my trusty change purse, reminding me of an incident that had occurred there, a few years back, involving the aforementioned purse. It's a good story. I'll tell it to you, shall I?
I had a regular routine when I did my weekly shop in this store, park the car, get the cart, and get on with it. To get the cart, you have to put a quarter in the thingee that unlocks it, and I keep my change, coincidentally, in a change purse. This purse habitually resides in my fanny pack. Now, I used to have a bad habit of neglecting to zip the pack back up properly after I've taken things in and out, and a couple of times I've had stuff fall out while I've been walking around not realizing I'm unzipped, but fortunately, I've mostly caught and retrieved before moving on.
This particular day, however, I did not notice my change purse had slipped out, somewhere in the store, while I was zinging up and down the aisles getting me groceries. I didn't miss the darned thing until I was returning the cart to the stand after having completely finished shopping and stowing, and upon retrieving my quarter was dismayed to discover I no longer had a change purse to put the change in.
I was extremely choked to find it gone; it had about 25 bucks in it; a folded ten dollar bill and an additional 15, give or take, in Loonies, Twonies* and other small change. It wasn't money I could easily afford to throw away at the time. Heck, I wouldn't be too happy about losing that much money even now, but back then, definitely a blow.
Extremely upset and not too optimistic about my chances of success, I rushed back into the store and retraced my steps. I had no idea where or at what point during the twenty minutes or so I'd been in the store I'd actually lost it – if it had been five minutes or fifteen. I was reasonably sure I lost it in the store, but that was all I knew.
A few more minutes of frantic and fruitless scurrying around wound me up even more, at which point I headed for the customer service counter in the faint hope someone had found it and turned it in. I held out even less optimism for this option – it was a generic change purse with no traceable ID, and…it had money in it.
Let's face it, I was dreaming, what were the odds whoever found it would actually turn it in. Hey, we all know everyone is just out for number one, yes? Someone finds free money in a non-descript container with no name or contact number for the owner, they're gonna keep it, right? I mean, why wouldn't they, not like they could give it back or anything?
Right?
Yeah, well, I knew all that, but I had to give it a shot.
The girl at the counter confirmed my worst fears; no one had turned anything in. She listened very politely while I ranted, spewing stuff along the lines of, 'don't know what I was expecting, people suck', yadda yadda, none of it particularly kind, or enlightened, and my parting words to her were:
"I hope they choke on it."
I got two steps away from the counter and something flashed into my mind not only stopping my in my tracks but making me instantly mentally retract all my unkind thoughts. That something was a lesson I'd learned years previously, also involving money, when I was on the other end of the process, and I'll tell you about this one next time.
I had lost something – it had been found by someone else. Maybe that person needed it more than I did, and that's why this had happened. My 'misfortune' could actually be a blessing to someone else. I had to see it that way. Not as a loss, not as something 'bad' that had happened to me, but as something 'good' I had done for someone else.
So, I did. I stopped cursing and started thanking. I hoped my purse had been found by someone who had been helped by the money, and that it had done some good. I blessed the person in my thoughts, and then I let the whole thing go and went on with my day. Went to the dollar store and bought another change purse. Didn't like it as much as the old one, but ah well, replacement secured, lesson learned, move on.
And…I did. As well as completely forgetting about the incident.
Until, a couple of weeks later, when I happened to be at the customer service counter in the same grocery store talking to the same clerk. She took my money for the purchases I'd just made, I was about to leave when she suddenly said:
"Oh, by the way, did you get your change purse back?"
What?
She looked under the counter, and there it was! Where it had been sitting for the last couple of weeks after someone had turned it in not five minutes after I'd been there inquiring after it.
You want to hear the best part? The money was still in it. All of it.
Now, is that not too cool or what? Swear to God, true story! I was so impressed and blown away that this wonderful person, whoever they were had done this incredible thing for me. And you better believe I blessed and thanked them again for their kindness and honesty. The way I started out thinking about them, though, I didn't feel like I deserved it. But they had not only given me back everything I'd originally lost, I came out way farther ahead in the bargain. I was doubly gifted, not only for having what I'd lost returned to me, but I was also given a powerful confirmation there are good and honest people out there. You just have to have faith and think right.
Diogenes was wrong; there are honest men and women in the world. And I have the change purse to prove it.
Do right and you'll never lose.
Phoenix *For those of you who aren't Canadian, which is, I expect, most of you the 'Loonie' is the name given to our dollar coin probably because it's got a loon on it. That would be my guess. When the two dollar coin came out there was some debate as to what it should be colloquially referred to – Dubloonie – my personal favourite, was in the running for awhile, but Twonie eventually won out. Personally I don't know why, the coin has a polar bear on it, not a loon, but there you are. And this concludes our unscheduled, but we hope entertaining Canadian trivia moment, eh? |
| posted by The White Dove Partnership @ 23:13 |
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| Tuesday, 9 September 2008 |
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Shannon is back! Today I made the trip to the airport, met her at the gate, drove her back to our domicile, and now my empty apartment is a home again. I mean, the cats are great, but it's just not the same. Already the place is being reorganized and restructured, everything lined up the way Shannon likes it and needs it to be, she's been bustling about behind me picking up things and putting them away as soon as I put them down, the blinds are being closed for the evening as I write this and it's just…
It's all pretty darned good.
Like most autisics Shannon brings OCD to a truly sublime level. Rigid routine, structure and the meticulous organization of everything in her universe (including, a lot of the time, me) is comforting to her, helps her deal with stress and sensory overload. She needs to do it, she needs me to do it with her and for her, and figuring this out early on went a long way towards gradually defusing the terrifying tantrum syndrome. Growing with her was an incredible learning experience for both of us, and once I started making the connection between the TV remote being in the wrong place and her going ballistic all over the living room, I decided it might be a good idea to start putting it where she wanted it to be and leaving it there already. Along with gradually learning and implementing all the other various routines and rituals she needed in order to be able to feel safe and secure in her personal universe.
Don't think it was always easy. More than once I found having to follow the restrictions her requirements placed on me arbitrary, annoying and extremely confining. I mean, what the heck did it matter if the blinds were opened three inches instead of two? And geez, the world wasn't going to come to an end if every single stinking condiment wasn't lined up in precise row in a certain order on the door shelf in the fridge.
Well, yes and no. Maybe my world would keep on spinning on its comfortably chaotic axis. Casual clutter had worked for my just fine before Shannon came into my life. But I told myself this wasn't about me. While I was able to adapt, she wasn't. It wasn't her fault if she needed everything about her to be organized in an exacting and precise way, and if it made her feel good to do it and to have things all her way, I should just suck it up and do it already.
I was the adult, I was the one capable of changing and adapting, and also able to understand the need for it, so I was the one who had to do it.
Funny thing, the more I dug in and conformed, the less I resisted her need to control everything in her environment, the more I gave her what she needed, the better things got. Feeling safe, in control and understood, she stopped screaming. Knowing I was seeing her and getting what she wanted and needed, she realized she didn't have to put all that frantic and horrific energy into attempting to communicate basic wants and needs. She started calming down, 'coming out' venturing beyond her immediate comfort zone of me and our personal bubble. She started talking more, allowing limited contact from other people, got better about being in public to the point I could take her places I'd never dreamt possible a few short years previous, and she eventually learned to deal with the sort of stimulation that used to send her into a screaming frenzy.
No, it hasn't been easy, but it's been so worth it. And not just on Shannon's side. I've learned a few things too, about self-discipline, and the comforting simplicity of order and structure. It's kinda nice to know where everything is, and to not have to think about planning your day. In an odd way, structure is very liberating. Something I may or may not have come around to eventually learning if not for Shannon.
Besides, bonus situation here, the kid is cleaner than I am. And she never runs down. Buzzing around snapping up stuff as soon as I'm done with it, tossing it in the garbage bin, the recycle bin or the dishwasher, or where ever appropriate. Nothing piles up in this place, let me tell you!
And besides, how many people can say their nineteen year old daughter's room is immaculate and they didn't have to lift a finger or spend hours nagging her for it to get that way?
Yep, Shannon's home, and everything that means is right with my world again.
I know, not too profound, but I felt like sharing it anyway.
Enjoy and blessingsPhoenix |
| posted by The White Dove Partnership @ 20:35 |
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| Sunday, 7 September 2008 |
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I was watching my favourite reality show this morning. You know, Extreme Make-over: Home Edition. The team was down in New Mexico doing a build for a family who'd moved into a crime-ridden neighborhood and almost single-handedly were turning it around and were putting their all into rehabilitating it and ministering to the homeless and needy people. During the expositional 'meet the family' segment at the beginning Ty asked the dad why he did it. I found his response particularly touching, the love he so eloquently expressed for the people he and his family were so dedicated to helping. But what most captured my imagination was what he called them.
Broken people. It sounded so sad, yet so apt, very evocative and strangely poetic. Broken, but not valueless. Worth the effort. That was how he saw them, and his passion, his deep rooted respect for a segment of humanity most of us more than likely walk on by without even considering, I found it very inspiring, and that spirit of incredible generosity and acceptance driving him, I wanted to understand it better.
I thought a lot about what I had seen and learned as the day progressed, then decided to take a short jaunt to the new grocery story only ten minutes walk from my place, to pick up a few things. On my way back I got a small surprise.
That old 'be careful what you wish for' thing? Sometimes it works really fast!
I was a couple of blocks away from my house when a very scruffy looking, back-pack toting man on a bike drew up to the curb beside me. Obviously a street person. He was very polite, apologizing profusely for bothering me, and assuring me I didn't need to be afraid of him (which I wasn't). He made a request of me, I gave him what he wanted, a civil enough exchange, still on the impersonal side, and that might have been the end of it, except…
Maybe it was because I looked him in the eye, maybe he sensed I wasn't judging him, but whatever it was, he suddenly started talking to me, and I listened. He told me he hadn't always been like this, homeless, once he had a life, a good career, a family, and somehow he'd lost his way. He wanted to turn his life around, to get off the streets, and I tried to be encouraging, telling him if that's what he really wanted, he could do it. We talked a bit longer, he sang me a song he'd written himself, about his life and for just a fleeting second I understood what Gerald Martinez had been talking about. No matter what he looked like, no matter how far apart we were in circumstances, though he was broken and wandering down a hard and comfortless road – not valueless. Not beyond hope and definitely not beyond redemption. He yearned and felt and dreamed and in that, we weren't so different.
The moment passed, he thanked me for my kindness; I thanked him for the gift of his song. We went our separate ways. I hope I gave him encouragement and a measure of self-respect in addition to some small change, but what he gave me; I definitely think I got the better part of the bargain.
He gave me a piece of himself, and a profound lesson in respect and tolerance, as well as a greater understanding of the value of each individual human being.
No matter our particular circumstances, we are all special, each one unique, we all have value. We have to look beyond the surface, and reach out when we can, because any kindness, no matter how small, could be of incalculable importance.
Now, I'm not saying what I did on that street corner in any way compared to the way that incredible family in Albuquerque are making a difference, but for me, it was a small step along the road to greater understanding. I have no idea to what extent our exchange affected him; odds are I will probably never know. But I will remember him, and hold the hope he will find the way to be the man he wants to be. And who knows, miracles happen every day, perhaps the universe has one in store for him.
Here's hoping.
Phoenix |
| posted by The White Dove Partnership @ 19:47 |
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| Friday, 5 September 2008 |
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As parents we love our children; their happiness is the most important thing in the world to us, and we want to do everything we can to keep them from pain and harm. It doesn't matter if they're five or thirty five, even grown and out on their own, that desire to protect, the need to help; it never goes away.
You want to protect them with every fibre of your being but sometimes, paradoxically, intervening is the worst thing you can do. It doesn't sound right and it definitely isn't fair, but there it is.
It's hard, really hard during those times when for all your love and concern, there's nothing you can do to stop them from choosing a difficult and painful path. You have to stand back, stay silent, let them go on their own, to strive, experiment, discover, and sometimes falter, because it's their right to make their own choices, and it's the only way they will learn, and grow. Not all their decisions will be right, smart or wise. Like every other human being who's gone before them on their singular life journey, including their parents, they will make mistakes. They'll fall down, they'll stumble and skin their knees, and they'll burn their fingers on the stove you told them not to touch. While you stand there and let them, because you know what, sometimes the only way to learn the lesson is make mistakes, burn your fingers and fall down.
They have to do what they have to do, even if it hurts them, and hurts you more, having to watch, unable to do anything else.
I sometimes wonder if this unanswerable but necessary sorrow, if this is the way God (and I am using this one term to encompass all the various emanations of the Divine Truth as it has expressed itself to humanity through our history. I believe all are valid. Feel free to substitute the name of your choosing) feels when he walks amongst us on this beautiful planet he has given us to shape as we please and sees so many of us stubbornly, willfully hurting ourselves when we refuse to see, refuse to believe, choosing to be selfish and cruel to ourselves and others, because we can and we want to be. What tears does he weep, loving us so much and yet knowing, with a divine, all-encompassing vision and wisdom we can only faintly emulate, but can't even begin to approach, that he must let us be. Yes, he has the power to take away our sorrows and travail, to make it all better, but he knows for our best good, he must not intervene. He has given us the privilege of free will, the incredible gift of creation, the ability to make our own personal worlds and this larger reality we all share what it is, exactly the way it is. If he stepped in, and made it all go away – what would we learn? How would we grow?
We all know there is such a thing as too much, a child pampered, spoiled and sheltered, indulged and given everything they want does not make for a very successful adult. They have earned nothing, they have done nothing, they have learned only a false sense of entitlement; they expect everything and give nothing back.
If we as loving, concerned parents are diligent to not do such a disservice to our own children, then why do we rail at God when he refuses to 'spoil' us?
Sometimes the answer is, and must be 'no'. That does not mean we do not love any less, or desire to help. There are times when acting on that natural inclination is in fact, the worst thing you can do. This is hard to understand, even harder to enact, but realizing when to let go, when the greatest act of love and respect you can bestow upon your children is to not interfere, to do nothing, this is truly the beginning of wisdom.
Knowing it's the right thing to do doesn't make it any easier. But if you truly care, it's the only thing you can do.
When I was a small child I had an extraordinarily vivid and profound dream. At the time I was much too young to understand it fully, but that has changed a little with time and experience.
I dreamt I was walking in a beautiful, lush garden with Jesus. He didn't look like the 'Jesus' I saw in the portrait hanging on the wall of the Sunday School room; he was a clean-shaven young man, with brown curly hair, dressed in contemporary clothing, but I knew he was Jesus. I didn't think there was anything odd about the dichotomy of his appearance, or the fact I was holding his hand and walking through this garden with him. It just was what it was.
We walked quietly through the garden, not talking, enjoying the serenity and beauty of the place, the path we were following meandering past the trees and fantastic flowers until we came to a huge, overgrown stone gate. He opened it up and led me inside this little enclosed area of the garden.
Inside, the ground was grassy, and strewn across this verdant carpet were dozens of what I can only describe as – kids toys. I don't remember what they were called, but they were common in the sixties, a kind of building set, sort of the pre-cursor to the erector set, round connector wheels and sticks and dowels made of painted wood. You stuck them all together and made stuff.
Anyway, there were a whole bunch of these things lying on the grass, like a bunch of kids had been there playing, putting together their fantastical constructions, and then had left them lying on the grass after they'd been called in for dinner. Jesus lit right up as soon as he saw them, pulled me by the hand, urging me to draw close and inspect them with him.
"My children made these!" He said to me excitedly as he got down on his hands and knees and carefully picked up the first one. "Aren't they wonderful!"
I stood by his side and watched him examine this thing, turning it over carefully, reverently, holding it with exquisite care while he looked at it like it was a precious diamond. When he had finished drinking in every detail, smiling and oohing and awing like this was the most wonderful thing he'd ever seen, pointing out various things to me about how great it was, he put the first one down, ever so carefully, and picked up the next one. All the time urging me to join him and look at them too.
I wanted to make him happy, I mean, come on, after all, he was Jesus, so I sat down and picked up one of the…things. He was having a good time, and he thought they were really special, but honestly, when I looked at the one I was holding, all I saw was a weird spherical mess, a kind of decrepit collection of wooden dowels stuck together with the round wooden connectors. It didn't even look like anything recognizable; it was a haphazard mishmash, a bizarre jumble of wood.
I tried, I really, really tried to see what he was seeing, to see this crude, bizarre thing as something wonderful, but I couldn't. I just didn't get it, but if he said it was something great, well, I would take his word for it.
We went a little farther into the enclosed glade, still looking at the forest of constructs on the grass of the glade. Then abruptly he stopped, looked down at one in particular, his face suddenly as sorrowful as it had been previously joyful.
It was another one of the many, many wooden thingees we'd already seen, but this one was different. This one was broken. Smashed and splintered, totally ruined as if someone in a fit of anger had stomped on it and deliberately destroyed it.
Tears formed in his eyes; he got down on his hands and knees and gathered all the little broken bits together, cradling them to his chest. He didn't say anything, just sat there and wept, such profound grief and sorrow over this smashed kid's toy, I couldn't comprehend it. I felt so bad, to see him so sad, but it was like he wasn't even aware of me anymore, he was so lost in his sorrow. It was then I realized these 'things' were about more than they seemed, they represented something bigger, more meaningful, but I was only about five or six, and the larger lesson was too complex for me to grasp at the time.
But I never forgot the dream, and with a little more time and life experience, yeah, eventually I got it. Or at least I like to think I have.
However we may grieve him, with our willfulness, pride and selfishness, he never stops loving us. Never doubt this, and remember also, even when we seem inextricably mired in the deepest well of misery of our own making, no matter how it appears, we are neither lost, nor alone. He never leaves us, even if we leave him no choice but to let us go.
Love your children enough to do no less.
A Mother
Phoenix |
| posted by The White Dove Partnership @ 23:06 |
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| Monday, 1 September 2008 |
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My apologies, I really should have written this yesterday, but it wasn't until very late I realized yesterday was…the day. So, I guess I'm doing it today. Eleven years ago, 31 August 1997, a bright light was tragically extinguished, taken from us by the heedless actions of representatives of the media juggernaut that stalked and preyed upon her in order to satisfy our insatiable need to know about her. It was a day indelibly etched on my consciousness, not simply because of the tremendous grief and disbelief I felt, like almost everyone else in the world, but because of a singular event I experienced, intimately connecting me to the tragedy in a way I never could have expected or anticipated. I had no special connection to Diana; I was simply one of the many, curious masses vicariously viewing the purloined, published moments of her life as the media stole them from her and fed them to us. And yet, that day, I truly felt her pain in a way I will never forget. This story actually starts a couple of weeks before that fateful day. I was on a bus, travelling from Winnipeg to Ontario, where I would spend two weeks visiting family and friends, and then take Shannon back to Winnipeg with me, her summer visit with her Dad being over for another year. It was the second day of the journey; I was bored, having finished my book several hundred miles ago. So, when we made a rest stop at a small roadside gasbar/diner I eagerly hopped out of the bus, hoping to procure more reading material. A quick perusal of their scant periodical stand was bitterly disappointing. The only reading material on offer, and by my standards it barely qualified, was a whole lot of tabloids. Now, normally, I would not even have considered any of them, but the prospect of being trapped on a bus for at least another five hours with absolutely nothing to read made me break my strict policy of avoiding that trash at all costs and actually 'gulp' buy one. I went for what I figured was the least of all the evils. I don't remember which one it was now. Hey, it was eleven years ago! Well, five minutes into it I wanted to toss it out the window. It was chock full of intrusive and extremely unflattering pictures of Diana on a beach and a yacht with Mr Feyd, and the editorial comments accompanying the pictorials, neither kind nor gracious. Yep, the magazine definitely wasn't shy about sharing its opinion of the ex-princess's latest romance, her morals and her right to be on a public beach attempting to have a normal life like any other human being while looking any less than like she'd just walked out of a salon after getting a full body-make over. They had plenty to say, all right, and none of it was good. It made me angry; I remember swearing at the damn thing and wishing the parasites publishing it would leave the poor woman the hell alone. I stuffed it in the trash bag and left it behind when we got to Winnipeg. After I learned she was gone, I wished I'd kept it. Just to have the contrast between how they were vilifying her two short weeks previously, and yet pursuing her relentlessly, versus deifying her after her demise. The magazine I no longer possessed became very symbolic in my mind, a foreshadowing of the building obsession and insanity culminating in that terrible chase with its tragic result. I honestly don't know if the whole magazine episode played any part in what I experienced the day she died. I do know she was on my mind for much of that period, and I had, well, I wouldn't call it a presentiment…precisely. I only know reading that magazine and realizing what the world was saying about her bothered me, and that feeling of wrongness and impending…something, wouldn't go away. Two weeks later it's 31 Aug, and I'm back on the bus, with Shannon, on the second day of our two day one night bus trip home. It's a beautiful late summer day, I didn't really note the time at the time, the sunlight is streaming through the windows; the bus is making its way smoothly but steadily on down the hi-way and I'm drowsing in my seat. Not quite asleep, and yet not quite awake, in that funky twilight zone between awareness and oblivion. And…here's where it gets weird. I was floating happily in this white, warm place when suddenly I was thrown into chaos and darkness. I felt confined, trapped, the world was spinning, literally over and over, I could feel terror like a palpable thing, and hear a woman screaming. Don't ask me how I knew, but I was certain I was in a car, and it was rolling over. The sensation of spinning, the sounds, the screaming were so utterly, frighteningly real. I was only in this place for a couple of seconds, but the experience scared the crap out of me and I jerked abruptly awake, but briefly disoriented, completely unsure of where I actually was. When I recovered, realized I was safe in my seat on the bus and had not, in fact, just been in a crashing car, I was slightly less freaked, but still, having some sort of a whatever it was I'd just had about a car accident while in a bus, not the most reassuring thing to have happen to one. However, as I had more time to calm down and process I came to a certainty what I had tapped into had nothing to do with me. This had happened to someone else and was not, in fact, going to arrive on my doorstep. I didn't know who that someone was, wasn't sure if I'd ever know, so I filed the incident away and went back to enjoying the ride. Bear in mind for most of that day and into the evening I was incommunicado on a bus, so I had no way of knowing what had just happened in that tunnel in Paris until way later that evening once we hit town and taxied home. It was a little after 11, I turned on the TV and while I was unpacking my suitcase, that was when I'd heard Diana had been involved in a car crash in Paris, and she had died as a result of her injuries. Stunned, I listened to the broadcast, learned the time of the actual accident. Did a little math, connected the dots between when the accident had happened, and allowing for the time difference, that meant about the same time the Mercedes came to the end of the line in that tunnel I was an ocean and half a continent away, was sitting on a bus…sort of drowsing… That's when I knew whose car I'd briefly been in earlier in the day. I can't tell you how I knew, I just… I knew. In the days that followed, like everyone else I mourned and tried to deal with the unreality of it all, closely followed the sorrowful spectacle of the floral outpouring against the gates of Buckingham Palace, and watched every second of her funeral ceremonies. The whole time I pondered what I had experienced, how had it happened, why had it happened, and what did it mean? In the end I came to the conclusion in all likelihood it was simply a result of being in the right place at the right time, or rather the right mental place at the right time – nothing more profound than that. That's not to say, however, it also wasn't an occasion for a powerful lesson. I don't believe I am or was anything special enabling me to do what I did. I just got lucky. What I mean is, in that moment she was 'broadcasting', wide open, and I just happened to be an on-line receiver tuned into the right frequency. I believe we are all connected. We are constantly broadcasting thoughts, feelings and emotions creating an interconnecting, subliminal network between all of us. The original world wide web, if you will. What we all think and feel and believe, we're continually sending it out there, each of us forming the greater, global reality we all share in the process. We also influence each other in ways we're not consciously aware of. I believe precognitive dreams, visions, hunches, come from this global web, and each one of us can tap into it. Maybe not consciously, or at will, but we do it all the time without even being aware of it. Some, obviously are better than others, and have more control over the process, but it can definitely happen, like it did to me, if the 'broadcaster' is sending out a particularly strong psychic signal, and you just happen to be, like I was, in an altered, receptive state. I'm convinced that's what happened. I was in that null space, open and unknowingly receptive, and I got sucked in by what must have been the psychic equivalent of an atom bomb. The terror, the confusion, the pain, the disbelief, those last, desperate seconds blasting out into the ether, tearing a hole in the very fabric of reality. And I just happened to be there too, at the exact same time, wide open to making that tenuous….connection. I can't prove any of this; of course, I know that, like most profound truths, this one is entirely internal and subjective. Nevertheless, I know what I know, and I know what I believe. And I know, just like every single one of us, everything I think, feel, believe and manifest through my thoughts and actions has a real effect not only on my personal world, but on the greater universe all the rest of us inhabit. I know the power that gives me, and as well as the accompanying responsibility to strive to be as positive an influence as possible. I can choose to make a difference. We all can. And I have a woman I will now never meet who reached out unknowingly to me in what might have been her final, conscious seconds on Earth to thank for this amazing insight. I wish I could thank her. I wish she was still with us. Diana, the world won't forget you. I know I never shall. Wherever you are now, I pray you have found peace. Shape your own worlds with care and love Phoenix |
| posted by The White Dove Partnership @ 19:34 |
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