Two Apparent Worlds, One Reality

I've been back in Brisbane a week now! I have left one 'world' and returned to another. But of course, they are interconnected and I am not the only interconnecting thread either! So much else in this physical form of consciousness connects them - the air, the ocean, the aircraft that took me from one to the other, the people that were on that plane, the communication between the two and so on. And how vastly different these worlds appear to me! Yet, how much a part of both I feel!

The ability to travel such great distances in such short periods of time allows for rather fascinating experiences. For instance, I find my typical perceptions of difference rapidly clouding in the penetrating realizations of sameness.

My access to people in both 'worlds' gives me a sense of continuity and connectivity between them. For instance, while I was with my brother who is currently only mobile by means of a wheelchair, I noticed some design drawbacks in the wheelchair. Upon returning to Brisbane, I have found myself in the home of another person who uses a wheelchair, the design of which I consider ideal. I happened to think to myself how nice it would be if my brother also had something similar. A day later, I receive an email from another brother saying he had found a wheelchair that, by his description, is rather like the one I've seen here! And this has happened without my even mentioning wheelchairs to my brother!

I guess what I am trying to say in all this is that my sense of continuity and connectivity is one that has perhaps been heightened by my travels between these 'worlds'. The truth of the matter, however, is that this continuity and connectivity have always been. They just hasn't been noticed.

Right now, across the world, there must be others doing something similar to what I am doing right now, feeling some of the things I am feeling, having needs and desires similar to mine. Right now, across the world, there are people being abused, entertained or cared for. Common needs, common emotions, just different details that thread our individual stories; individual stories given meaning by the enchanting and forever unfolding story of divine love!

I do not exist, am not an entity in this world or the next,
did not descend from Adam and Eve or any origin story.
My place is the placeless, a trace of the traceless. Neither body or soul.
I belong to the beloved, have seen the two worlds as one
and that one call to and know, first, last, outer, inner,
only that breath breathing human being.

Jalal-Ad-Din Rumi at http://enlightenedbeings.com/rumi.html

The Bliss that calls Me

The last few hours of my visit are here. What a visit it has been for as visitor and family, I have been touched with a warm tenderness and rich affection by all. I trust they have been touched in turn by the love and gratitude I have felt.

If it weren’t for the calendar and clock, I would not be so certain that an entire month (and a bit) have passed. While the focus of attention has mostly been on my darling brother, Joe, I have managed to attend to the needs and interests of one or two others. For that, I am truly grateful.

During this visit, I have been drawn into the ‘flowing mirror’ of my soul, as James Hillman describes it, aroused by its ever-shifting imagery, seduced by its haunting forever-ness.

Had it not been for the daily invitations so sensitively sent to my attention by the two people here who most need care i.e. by brother, Joe, and my mother, I could have easily been lost in the shifting sands of my soul.

Life is truly enchanting even when the thorns of its rose-bushes stab you unexpectedly and almost mercilessly at times. Keep your attention on the rose-bushes and you soon forget the pain. Instead, you soon remember the Garden of Eden you were born into and in which the divine that you are lives in bliss!

"You begin to meet people who are in the field of your bliss and they open the doors for you. I say follow your bliss and don't be afraid and doors will open where you didn't know they were going to be."
- Joseph Campbell


I believe it is this bliss that calls me and bids me follow it and so I shall, physically to Brisbane for now and metaphysically into the wild, enchanting, sacred spaces of my soul’s longings! See you there…..

Gentle Ironies

Mum relates an internal dialogue an older cousin has been having with God. That lady, now 88, is just three years older than Mum.

For some years now, Mum has lived with what I perceive to be an anxiety over her tenancy on earth! It stems from a belief that she should have been called to her true home by now. So many others of her generation have been called. Why hasn’t she?


Here's the test to whether your mission on earth is finished. If you're alive, it isn't. ~ Richard Bach at www.quotegarden.com

She also believes, like so many others, old and young, that old age is fraught with illness, loss of physical and mental abilities and a purposelessness that is burdensome to others. I can’t help feeling that she feels compelled to fulfill her prophecies of poor health and an inevitable degradation of her lifestyle.

Fortunately, she retains an enviable sense of humor although these days, she calls upon it less frequently than she used to. Thus this somewhat rare recount of her cousin, Fidelis’, conversation with the supreme personage is one that I am keen to hear. It clearly has amused Mum intensely and continues to as it brings on a paroxysm of laughter.

“I asked him, “Why haven’t you taken me yet? How much longer am I supposed to live like this? I am getting tired and weary. You had better call me soon”.

But that man up there doesn’t seem too interested. In fact, I’ve observed his preference for younger people. The likes of you and I are too old for him.

(Mum is forced to pause as more laughter interrupts).

Anyway, I’ve pressed him for an answer and he has finally told me that he doesn’t want me yet. Well, I decided then that if that was his position, here was mine: “If you don’t call me now, when you eventually do, I shall refuse to go””.

Mum is in tears by now. I am enjoying this. I love to watch Mum having a good laugh. It was a forbidden thing when my father was alive. We, children, all nine of us and Mum weren’t allowed to sit in conversation with each other and we most certainly weren’t allowed to laugh. If, by some extreme misfortune, we did, we were pulled up, slapped across the cheek, told off in language we ourselves would not dare use in his presence, and sent to ‘exile’ i.e. some corner of the house away from everyone else. But today, Mum is able to laugh freely, even if sometimes feeling too frail to!

Ah, such ironies that life serves up. We enjoy the present as best we can as we nervously undo the shackles that keep us fettered to past fears…