The Citadel

The gift of meaning

"Christmas table" - Photo - Wendy Bradtke (C) 05

Finally arriving at the other side of the holidays, in the beautiful quiet of January,
has me reflecting on the meaning of this Season. I tend to feel Christmas is a time
the modern world has stripped of worthwhile meaning, and I like to spend time trying
to contemplate what the real meaning might be.

This year my Christmas and New Year revolved simply around the idea of what would
bring a sense of real meaning to my celebrations. How I approached that was enriched
by the thoughts of Cheryl Richardson at hayhouse radio - Cheryl is a life coach who has
been a major inspirer for me this year. I listened carefully because in the past I've
always experienced a sense of emptiness at Christmas and New Year.

Now like a Christmas miracle I'm seeing it differently, and I'm feeling this may
carry over into the whole of my life, not only the holidays!

What I did was to look at the emptiness from the other end of the telescope.
Christmas is a time of rituals, traditional and personal, and I examined mine in
detail. Rituals are meant to evoke feeling, and mine were evoking emptiness. During
the holidays I spend nearly all my time socializing in my workplace, even at other
colleagues workplaces. I spend a lot of time with nice people, but I share only work
with them. Then there's my "catch up with once a year" people. I suspect I only keep
in contact with some of them through guilt. In the whirl-wind of this I lose the connections
that mean the most - my close family and my close friends. I need to find some balance.

As a result my holidays become filled with conversations about shared emptiness. Too
many conversations about how crappy the year was, how stressful the holidays are, too
much shared complaining about work. I was daring enough to change the topic over one
lunch with colleagues, instead we talked about the best book we'd read during the year.
It wasn't geeky, it was fascinating. We all deepened our understanding of each other.
It did not feel empty, it felt great!

Years ago, I stopped attending large New Year parties, I'm not party person. I compensate
by sitting up late viewing the fireworks. After the clock chimes midnight, I switch off
the TV and suddenly the New Year becomes a blank TV screen, a sort of void. That's not
a good way to begin anything! As a ritual its about as empty as it gets. Next year I'm   
approaching New Year very differently, not sure how yet, but I'm really thinking it through! 

All of this has shown me great deal about how I live life generally - a new layer of
conditioning has been revealed. Marvelous! Its given me a key to enriching and deepening
my experience. It was the real gift that the holidays brought. The gift of meaning.

Much love on this day, Wendy.    
 

Self doubt at my door

Self doubt came knocking at my door this
morning and sat down in a comfy chair.
I wanted to show it the door and send it
packing. But then I thought, maybe it has
something to tell me.

Maybe if I send it packing I'm going to miss some vital
fact, or sweep a missing piece of puzzle under the rug.
Frankly, I'm scared to look into its gaze. I can see some
motes in its eyes. Each one has a sobering tale to tell.

Just what is this feeling of scrambling to the top of a heap?
Doubt is assessing my inner scale of measurement, searing
into raw areas. Maybe I will never be good enough to scale
my mountain, or that I'm fool enough to think of climbing
mountains. What is it to be a fool? Isn't the fool the companion
of the wise? So... I may look foolish on my ascent. Now there's
a handy piece of ego to chip away. Strike one, self doubt!

If I reach the top of my mountain what of me will still
exist? Maybe up there I'll have to meet myself, the stranger.
Doubt prods at my sense of self. What changes will I have
to make? More scary, the compromises already made?
OK, so I realize I have an agreement stashed away. Doubt
runs its highlighter through some points. Some points are
good, some not, but mostly they are ingrained.
More chipping away in store. Strike two!

From this I learn I have issues with that thing called quality.
Who really adjudicates quality? Doubt strips that back to the
bleached bones of truth. Its the truth in the thing that
matters. The truth of your being, the truth of expression,
in a world filled with illusions. In an artistic sense,
truth can be subtle, but its absence is glaring. Strike three!

Self doubt, from its easy chair, dismantles the barriers
to digging deeper. Like chipping away my own Berlin wall,
it questions that which has become trite, stale and habitual.
I look to the Citadel, hoping to find some scattered gems.
I know they are there, but where, and how are they wrought? 

Today I found a deep well
inside my Citadel.
Its waters are emerald green
and sink down,
beyond my knowing.
The golden fish of doubt
swims silently in the water.
Swallowed whole
I drop down,
not drowning,
but breathing.
This place is bottomless,
but its warmer and lighter
the further down I go.
Its the truth that tells,
the beauty that you leave,
sailing past my siren stone,
that's written in sand below.
The eternal and immortal sand,
imprint forever.

Reflection: Remembering Dad

Today, the 21st of March would have been my fathers 89 birthday. That means I lost Dad 3 years ago as he succumbed to old age and emphysema. Its been long enough now for me to remember without getting too emotional and I'm beginning to recall the fun times we had and the things he taught me without dissolving. Dad was an incredibly positive man, he believed in giving things your best shot no matter what. One of his lasting legacies to me has been a love of holidays. I am planning 3 separate ones presently, and he believed you couldn't take it with you. His somewhat forceful nature often rubbed people up the wrong way, but under that was a heart of gold for those he considered worthy. He adored Mum and I, my husband and his grandson, and thats the thing I remember most. Our joy was Dads world.

At the cliff-face

Eknath Easwaran well described the meditative process as diving deeper thru the layers of mind, and coming to rest against “walls”. Then there is a wandering along the “wall” trying to find a chink, a tiny opening, to let you thru into the next layer. I have always liked his idea, it’s something I feel I’ve experienced myself over the years.

But, all of that posits a sense of direction towards something which was to Easwaran, a devout Hindu, straight forward enough. But what is our relationship with that today? Do we need in our times to be re-energizing our sense of what Source is, and maybe more importantly, our relationship to it?

That is what I am finding now, I need to do that. It feels like I'm meditatively edging around a big wheel, and each way I position myself in relation to it I find another wheel in a new position. However it doesn't feel like edging around a collection of inter-connected wheels, but more that wherever I am the position of the wheel changes. But also the position is the same depending on which way I face, or look. It sounds confusing but when I'm there its oddly satisfying, its like I'm seeing every position at once.

Now in that last sentence I see the presence of a paradox.  That’s usually a good sign to me that I’m onto something. Nothing smells of Source more strongly than a paradox. I wonder where this will go? I feel like I’m about to be turned inside out energetically. Why do I feel like that?

I sense a “realization” looming. Marvelous! A new way of being is edging towards my doorstep. My fear has dissolved away and I'm following a meditative thread again.

Upliftment, Wendy xxx        

 

 

 

Soup and secret women’s business

Its too early in winter to be doing this, but my body decided, in the form of a cold, to unplug me from the flow of things. Colds usually don't hit me 'til winter is desperately bleak, but it seems this cold is saying now is the time for a re-plug into the flow of the stuff that sits beyond the senses in the Other World. Or maybe I'd call it the Dreamtime. A cold brings a small upheaval of routine and there's time to ruminate on things going on and down mind-wise. Aside from all the obligatory plunging into bottles of vitamins in search of a cure, there's that extra time for glorious plunging into thoughts - a little journey into "whatcha been doin' " within.

Some thoughts sit inside and bubble up like the fresh gush of coffee in the espresso machine. Those ones are thrilling, awakening, like explosions of light, even fireworks. Some thoughts are like the folds of a newspaper - in a rush to get to the best most interesting story, you go through the banal, the sensational, the sporting, and if you're lucky you end up in the funny papers. All of it can be a very domestic experience, like falling into one shiny kitchen soup-pot.

Well, the soup de jour is happily simmering chock-a-block with new things. It has heapin' spoonfuls of possibilities that weren't there before. Its like you've seen that secret page in the cookbook long-glued-together and it contains magical instructions revealing secret women's business from the far off Himalayas. You know, that way-up-high place shrouded in fluffy clouds, the inner sanctum, suddenly the clouds part and the hand of a goddess whips out. And its a sweet, humble and helping hand.

So the soup becomes a mix of bright lights. And in the swish of its words, it transcends words, you can only marvel at being in the serendipity of right time - right place.

And thats how it can be with colds, thoughts and soup in the Dreamtime. In a tiny circuit of ordinariness, a couple of days, and vitamins, you realize the wheel of synchronous energy is ever-flowing, looping around in circles and connecting everything to everything that lives. The so called real world reveals itself as a farce and then the Really-Guiding-Ever-Moving-Hands get to star in their own reality show. You can only deeply appreciate that, and you know, I really, really do.