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Carla’s Niche
Camelot Journal
Copyright © 2006 Carla L. Rueckert
Wednesday, June 8, 2005
(Carla) Let me say a bit about this trip first. It came about because a beloved student and friend of mine, Pupak Haghighi, decided to take a husband. Pupak is an Iranian-Japanese woman now in her thirties who spent three years in Louisville in the ‘90s going to university here and attending our L/L Research meetings. As is the way with our tribal species, she wished me to be a part of the wedding. My official title is Witness, which in her culture is like being a Spiritual Director for her and her husband-to-be, Peter, and is a lifetime relationship for us three, plus Peter’s brother, Michael, who is his Witness. I have been privileged to hold that role informally in Pupie’s life for some eleven years now, so it makes its own kind of sense to formalize this relationship as a part of their sacred marriage vows. It is extremely handy that I love Peter dearly and find it most easy to take him as well as dear Pu into my heart in that way. Her wedding will be on June 12 and Vara and I will arrive at Heathrow Airport in London on June 10, where Peter will pick us up and take us by car to their little East Sussex village of Forest Row. They have a home there with a hospital bed set up to accommodate my arthritic distortions and a room with a normal bed for Vara as well. This home will be our base for the time we are in England.
Vara most graciously volunteered to be my Admin, Jill-of-All-Trades and Companion for this trip. This was insisted upon as a condition of my being able to make the trip at all by my beloved husband, Jim, who must stay in Kentucky with Jim’s Lawn Service duties and cannot help me to travel this time. The last time we were apart for more than a weekend was 1986. Jim has taken me traveling so many times! On one occasion I rode lying on a mattress (I could not sit up because of neck and shoulder distortions) in the back of his truck to West Virginia for a speaking engagement, which I did from another hospital bed. I try not to miss a chance to serve or go new places! We have been on many a beau geste for L/L Research, but this time the game was called for him on account of rain, sun and summertime, all of which grow the grass he mows for his fortunate clients. I have to say that the hardest moment of this day for me was saying good-bye to my beloved Mick, my knight in shining armor, for three weeks. Ouch!
I am scheduled to speak five times in the 16 days following the wedding and, in addition, I have quite a few personal channeling and counseling sessions scheduled. This bounty of good work to do has manifested miraculously! I put a notice on our www.llresearch.org site asking people to arrange public speaking events for me in England on a donation basis, listed the dates I would be available and within two weeks, a fortnight I should say since I am going to England, I was booked for speeches in Forest Row, London, Bath, St. Albans and Newcastle.
(Carla) I wish we had thought to take pictures of the packing process! Vara and I are to attend two teas, a pre-wedding Woman’s Celebration and five speaking engagements in addition to the wedding itself, so we needed a record number of special-event outfits, we who normally are denim-clad. Snapshot One of the process would be of a “style show.” My bedroom was utterly invisible, awash in the garments from which to choose winners to pack. It took two thoughtful hours to try on clothes and choose the event outfits and an industrious few minutes to put away the losing garments.
Photo Two would involve kits. I assembled a medicine kit, a morning wash-up kit, a grooming kit, a bath kit, a before bed kit and a make-up kit. I do not usually wear any make-up but for public appearances I color my face to come closer to cultural norms so people can listen to the message I am offering instead of being distracted by my naked face. Also assembled were a computer kit, a morning offering kit and a correspondence kit. All of those were labeled and stacked next to the clothes. Shoes, underwear, nightgowns and the usual accoutrements were added to the piles. There it all stood, a would-be Photo Three of massive, yet orderly, clutter. I thought, “I will have room either for my kits OR for my clothing.” A photograph of my bedroom at this point would have shown an amazing array of chattels of all kinds filling the floor, bed and window seat to bursting. TOO MUCH!
Not for Vara. In an hour, she had wrangled the entire assemblage into six bags: my capacious purse, a computer carry-on, a medicine carry-on, two suitcases and a garment bag. We felt pleased with ourselves. That was a lot of stuff to winkle into order! But Princess Xena, er, Vara, managed to MacGyver it! A snapshot would have shown the bags all tidily stacked by the door, and everything else put away. This comes under the heading of Little Victories! When I get back, my bedroom will be neat.
(Carla) The final snapshot would have been a blur. Vara had been getting me together for hours! She packed her own things in forty minutes flat. How she did that I do not know. She said something about having it all planned in her head. Vara has a remarkable head!
I did one more thing this morning: I recorded an extremely generous donation of $1,000.00, which will help to pay L/L Research’s bills for this trip! It was an incredibly positive omen, I thought; the energy is definitely there for a magical time of talking about living the Law of One. I said good-bye to our three pussycats and to the Magic Kingdom’s fragrant mimosa, blooming day lilies and our newly planted impatiens climbing over Jim’s stonework gardens and we were off.
We discovered at the Louisville airport that nine bags (Vara had packed all of her needs into three, count them, three, bags) were too many for regulations. The airline rules allowed each of us two carry-on bags and two to check: a total of eight bags. So we needed to “disappear” one bag. We chose my purse, not small but the least sizable of all the pieces of luggage, to finesse. I carefully tucked the purse’s contents of books, correspondence to do, ID documents and my three week-at-a-time pill cases into the computer carry-on. Vara stashed my folded purse shell in one of my bags to be checked. It seemed a delightfully apt solution until the stewardess walked off with both my carry-on bags, saying that my under-seat could not accommodate them and she preferred to gate-check them through. By the time I discovered this, they were gone and I now had nothing to do during the flight, I who am known as a workaholic. And no ID or money. Nothing like that feeling of security!
(Carla) Vara had gotten seated next to a Persistent Speaker and, after take-off, quietly pointed out to me that she would be unable to read her book. As it happens, we are both reading The Invisible Garment. I spent my flight time reading Vara’s copy of the book while Vara was practicing vipassana as her seat-mate droned on, Zen-fashion, without taking a perceptible breath, for the entire flight time. I offer heartfelt thanks and a special medal for service-to-others to Vara!
The flight was perfect and we landed at summery LaGuardia, falling in that is-it-controlled-or-not fashion small planes have from a cerulean sky. After milling about on the tarmac, where a handicapped van had been ordered for me but no one had told us or the crew it was there, we were taken inside the airport where we were given a short-cut ride, courtesy of the airport wheel-chair lady and various elevators and doors which opened only to the privileged halt and lame, to the baggage claim area. All our luggage was safely returned to us. Thank you, Lord. A skycap hoisted the bags to the curb, from which a shuttle eventually fished us up. After riding through Queens traffic, horrendous to the eye and assaulting to the ear, we safely came to rest at the Eden Park Hotel, which has free shuttles to both LaGuardia and JFK airports—the key factor in its choice as we came in today to one airport and fly out tomorrow from the other.
The Eden Park Hotel is ironically named. It towers, a thousand-windowed slab of enormous size, next to twelve lanes on four different expressways, which ribbon along parallel to the industrial boulevard directly by which the Eden Park building stands. From my window in Room 316 I count exactly three trees: two between access ramps some two expressways away and one on hotel property. There is nowhere to walk. But that is OK with us! In order for us to stroll these days, we need a wheelchair for me and Vara has to push. This effectually deadens any casual urge to go a-wandering. I expect we shall do some wheelchair walks before this adventure is ended, but today we were just glad to get where we were going, get some supper and fall into bed, which we did in good spirits.
Thursday, June 9, 2005
(Carla) I awoke to the early dawn, my usual habit, and settled in with some written correspondence. My count, when I finished for the morning, was five letters answered and thirty-four to go—not bad for me, as I am chronically far behind in “snail-mail.” I use trips to catch up. I value these correspondences greatly and feel that one-to-one conversation is precious beyond its apparent importance by far. Such conversations cut through so many layers of cultural miasma! But oh, how woefully I lag behind in response. I feel sympathy for those who write me, for sometimes it takes six months or more for me to respond back.
(Carla) Vara stirred when I opened the curtains to the morning light, and then slipped back to dreamland. She was catching up after several nights of little sleep. I pressed on, greatly enjoying my three-trees and twelve-lanes view of Queens! When Vara rose, showered and addressed the day, she called Air India and found that we had another challenge before us: Air India would allow us only seven bags between us. Vara had opted to save some L/L Research funds by traveling economy and that class of passenger only receives permission to carry three bags. One more piece of luggage must be “disappeared” or we would be charged a steep price for checking it. After a suitable bit of breakfast, which for me would have been juice if I could find it, but ended up being a coke because they were out of juice, with all my additives poured in to make my nutritional shake for the morning, we addressed this challenge.
Vara chose to try to place the contents of the two garment bags in one. It was fascinating to watch her slow down to the awareness level of the baggage and ask it for help in finding room in apparently already-full suitcases. One item placed here, another item there, a careful look at what remained and then another round, until gradually she had not only repacked so as to reduce to seven bags, she had even managed to place the offending eighth bag, carefully folded, into the middle of the remaining garment bag, which now held 25 pieces of special event clothing. It was a work of art and I beheld it with appropriate awe! The feat took a solid three hours of slow and thoughtful maneuvering. Vara definitely now possesses a companion medal for service-to-others.
After we had enjoyed a luncheon, I started on this journal and by the time I had finished my first day’s entry, it was time to call the shuttle bound for JFK and begin the process of boarding the flight to Heathrow. How I enjoyed watching the people and the outfits at the airport! I think saris are lovely garments and naturally on Air India we had many Indian nationals and marvelous assortments of drifting silks in gorgeous patterns and combinations. As a woman said recently, “Saris are more comfortable than pants! They expand infinitely.” I would like to wear them, I think.
We were checked through after a very short wait, for Vara had noticed that business-class passengers are offered a different, shorter line. A kind attendant allowed Vara—as my helper—to join me and shortly we were all through with the mysterious activities of Homeland Security. They have an unnatural interest in shoes! My wheelchair attendant had told me Vara could not join me in the lounge, so we were all set to enjoy resting in the airport’s public banks of chairs, but a soft-hearted fellow took pity on us both and obtained permission for both of us to enjoy the lounge, where we found soft chairs and complimentary refreshment. I called Mick to say good-bye for the last time stateside, and Vara was called by two of her friends wishing her bon voyage. We were whisked by another kind attendant to the airplane and settled in for a nice dinner and the flight “over the water” as my Nana used to put it.
Prawns for dinner in business-class! The meal was gourmet but alas! I dropped a prawn on my white pants! It took three washcloths and much dabbing to make me presentable again. I so often do this that I feel remiss! Shall I dwindle in old age to a lady with spots on all her clothes? I fear so! I just hope I can still see them!
(Carla) As I finish this entry, the cabin around me has gone dark and I am peering at my laptop to make out the letters I am typing. The crew seems to want me to sleep! I find that energy escaping me at the moment, as my thoughts review this day and all its rich harvest: the hotel clerk who lent us a cart so we could move our seven fine pieces of luggage, the shuttle driver with his earphones and brave orange polo shirt, the sweet face of my wheelchair driver, the excellent puzzle page in the Indian newspaper in the “Maharaja Lounge” with not only the New York Times crossword but the Guardian cryptic.
Oh, joy! I had an Indian seatmate who is a statesman for the legislature of India as a whole and we had a provocative conversation for a spiritual activist like me about India’s woes: twenty approved state languages in a huge continent which has perhaps ten times that many native tongues; yet India, he says, has democracy and freedom. We agreed that this is far more valuable than easy solutions. China, he said, could impose a rule on their huge country like a national language and it would go into effect, willy-nilly. But India cannot. And he likes that. Even though it makes his job much harder, this good man likes that.
I told him we feel the same in the USA. I personally do not approve of our present president’s decisions and judgment. I am an FDR Democrat who believes in labor unions, a middle class and a way of life Bush seems determined to erase from America. This is, of course, my opinion only and apparently not the winning view. But in three years, we can choose again. What a boon! The freedom to be aware, to think, to choose: is that not a wonderful thing!
It will be three in the morning, in the time zone I left, when we arrive in London. There it will be 8 AM and the day will be full of promise. I look forward to London, to meeting Peter at the gate and to motoring to Sussex.
Friday, June 10, 2005
(Carla) It was a tough trip “across the water” with no sleep. I discovered Greenland is a very large island, as the cycling visual on the cabin’s TV monitor showed our snail-like progress across its breadth. However, the airplane was superbly quiet and the trip was smooth.
(Carla) Peter Brinch (pronounced “brink”), the groom, met us at the Heathrow Airport and with a speedy exit through customs we were soon driving through the chalk plains south of London to their little village of Forest Row in East Sussex. Need I say it is charming, picturesque and quaint to my American eyes? Bumpy-topped chimneys surmount steep roofs and the houses are often flush to the street in this part of the country, with much brick and stone being used. The hedgerows by the roadside are flush to the road and canopies of tree branches arch completely over the narrow roads. Their house is off the A-22 route, near East Grinstead. This will be our home base for the three weeks or so we are here.
We entered the small, stucco home of the bride and groom to find Pupak’s Aunt Ue (pronounced “oo-ay”) elbow-deep in mounds of vegetables and herbs. Vara and I took one speaking look at each other and joined the confusion of things to do, me chopping veggies and Vara helping Peter to set up my hospital bed and Pu to do errands. By evening I had washed and prepared tarragon and mint leaves for the Iranian flatbread and cheese dish as well as green onions and radishes, all in quantity to feed 90 people. I began on the 24 bags of parsley and managed to finish four of them before needing to leave to go to a “Goddess Gathering” that Nikki Williams, a shamaness, was giving for Pu.
(Carla) Nikki lives in a converted shed off a car repair park, an unlikely place for pastoral beauty, but she makes it work gloriously. We had a wonderful time, with a dozen other women gathered to celebrate Pu’s transition into married life. Nikki’s floor was centered with a blanket of sacred objects, from flowers to crystals to candles to everything in the world to create an opulent and sensual space. Our feet were bathed in rosewater and we told stories around the circle. Each woman had brought a gift she had created herself. Vara and I had both brought poems for Pu.
Saturday, June 11, 2005
(Carla) In these northern latitudes the sun rises before 5 AM and so did I! I caught up on correspondence for a while and when I heard others stirring around, I finished unpacking and began on the parsley again.
(Carla) At 11 AM, I went with Peter and Pupak to Plawhatch Farm (which means, roughly, Forest Gate Farm in modern English), where the wedding was to be held. Peter is a biodynamic farmer there. Biodynamic farming is a system created by Rudolph Steiner and this is how he and Pupak had met, as Pu studies this method of honoring the land and attempting to treat it well and volunteers her time there. This farm stretches for some acres in the country near Forest Row. Cows and sheep were in the field and roosters could be heard nearby. My feet will not take long walks any more and their wedding grove was some little distance into the farm, so two strong men, Gregers Brinch and Jonathan Horvak, took my wheelchair down the rough track into the woods, a path which had been very roughly hewn only that morning and which contained many a snag and surprise. It was comical. At length we bumped down into the forest dell that was still being prepared. The clearing had been overgrown with six-foot-high ferns and Peter and his brothers, Michael and Gregers, had been scything them down since early morning. Hay bales were being laid out to receive the guests in concentric circles.
I was seated near the center, as I had several parts to play in the long and comprehensive ceremony. I was one of the directions, West, and a singer as well as the Baha’i witness for Pupi. The other three directions were North, spoken in Peter’s native Danish; South, spoken in Pu’s native Farsi and East, spoken in Pu’s Aunt’s Japanese. My instructions were to “speak American.” I am assured I have a “smashing twang.” At length the ceremony was declared rehearsed and we bumped back up the winding hill and off to the continuing food preparation. The chill factor was substantial and I yearned for the sweaters I had foolishly left at home.
(Carla) Peter’s mother, a sophisticated and deceptively simple woman of considerable charm and slight build, was waiting for us when we arrived back at Forest Row. Her house, called “Applesham,” lies just up the lane from Peter and Pupak’s, with gardens of such beauty as could make me weep. Joan’s mate, Matthias, of Dutch extraction, is a biodynamic farming teacher. He has constructed descending gardens with three ponds, which communicate, when encouraged either by weather or by water from the hose, into an amazing network of waterfalls and rills. Vara walked up to join the farm party and we lunched gloriously on all manner of homemade bread and organic goodies. I found myself yearning for meat!
I met for the first time the entire Danish contingent, which consisted of Michael’s children, Iona and AnnaSophia, Gregers’ wife Sigune and their four children, their sister Jennifer, and Yette, Joan’s sister in law. Danish flowed around us in a liquid stream, not at all guttural but euphonious.
Then, back we came to finish the parsley and help Pupie’s friend, Bahir, pronounced “BaHA,” to cook the Iranian dish of herbs for which the parsley was chopped (and chopped and chopped and…)
(Carla) Peter and his brothers went to prepare the rehearsal dinner site but ran into a closed door for a solid hour. Thus was the dinner created to be very late in starting? They were finally able to begin to set up the room at the time the party had been set to start. Pupie, Ue and I feverishly rushed to set the cartons of food into bowls, added serving spoons, and we began dinner about two hours late. It was Chinese take-away, with lots of rice and food for both vegetarian and carnivorous tastes. I greedily enjoyed the beef and duck. The party broke up after ten and we cleared away, washing the dishes up and sweeping the room we had used. Coming home in a daze, we fell into bed around midnight.
Sunday, June 12, 2005
(Carla) The wedding day! Amazingly enough I found the bath open, so I had a restorative bath and got ready for the ceremony. We left the house at 9:30 with a wedding party of the Danish contingent, Joan and Matthias, Ue, Vara, me and the wedding couple, plus all the children: about twenty people.
Pupak was wearing a white satin dress with no sleeves but wide shoulder straps and a scoop neck, the bodice tailored and the skirt belled out into generous folds and drapes of luxurious, whispering material that puddled into a small train at the back of the full-length skirts. Pu had oversewn its bodice with seed pearls and embroidery and appliquéd streams of silver and gold daisy lace down the bodice and across the billowing skirt, which whispered with many under-layers of rich material.
Vara had spent the time of the wedding rehearsal meticulously sewing feathers, seed pearls and tiny gems with glass beads on to the wing-like, sheer “veil” which was worn like a stole and occupied her final minutes before we left for the Registry in Tunbridge Wells in frantically sewing a pewter clasp on to the waist of the “veil” to keep it in place and ruching the center of the back-neck part that draped across Pu’s nape so it would lie down properly with delicate threads. It was a mistresspiece!
(Carla) Vara looked lovely in lavender silk, while I wore an ivory silk top and damask patterned sheer jacket and a long pleated red skirt with ivory dots and border stripe. It looked terrific with my wheel chair! The groom wore a white suit with a huge boutonnière of tiny flowers and leaves exquisitely prepared by the children. The children had made circlet-crowns of the same flowers, which grow in profusion in this part of God’s country, for the bride and for themselves. How festive and Scandinavian it looked! Fresh flowers are such a treasure.
Gregers and Jonathan, an American long ago gone to Denmark to live and a dear friend of the family, brought me and my chair down to the grove again. Gregers and I were joking and laughing, practicing our wedding song, which he had just written and which neither of us knew completely. We were, therefore, unprepared for the fact that, since we were late to the wedding along with all the main wedding party, having been late also to the Registry, when we entered the clearing, there were 90 people watching our arrival with some interest. Had I had any sense of decorum left by this time I would have been mortified. Fortunately, I was spared such attacks of conscience by the press of so much happening so fast, and so I was settled into my place amidst the gorgeous, huge arrangements of flowers created by Rose for the grove, the altar with its flowers and candles and the hay baled circles and awaited the bride and groom.
The Celtic harp and flute played and played. Ten minutes at least went by. I had begun to wonder whether Peter and Pu had decided to bolt for an elopement “over the anvil” in Scotland when at last they appeared and the 90-minute ceremony began. It was presided over by Annie, an Interfaith minister whose robes were ivory and traditionally ecclesiastical, decorated with symbols from all religions. I cannot describe the richness of this rite, which had been created specifically for this occasion by Pu, Peter and Annie and which contained one each of everything one could imagine for such an occasion! A Native American rattle was shaken to ring the happy couple with sacred sound to seal the blessing of the four directions. All of nature was invoked! The elements were called! Michael and I witnessed for Pupak and Peter in the Baha’i way and Annie gave a beautiful homily. At length all was accomplished, the bride and groom candles were lit with their vows and then one candle was lit from both their tapers to symbolize their unity in marriage. Rings were exchanged and they led us off to dance in the adjacent meadow (being careful to avoid the gifts of the cows previously inhabiting it.) I watched from my wheel chair.
Do not think this was the ending, long as the ceremony had been! We were just warming up. The subsequent reception was in two parts at an arts center called Peridur. The first part offered Thai food and Japanese sushi, plus the fresh dipping veggies prepared by us earlier. These precincts were just beautiful, with roses and other blooms everywhere, the rhododendrons climbing to majestic heights and every building full of nooks and crannies and crenellations, which I find delightful. I have never seen such a cosmopolitan crowd as was at this wedding. I could have easily been persuaded that this was the United Nations! By now I was exhausted and sore of body and wishing it all to be over. Hah! Perish THAT thought!
At length I was taken home and went down like a cranky baby for my nap. After two hours, it was up and back to Peridur, where we celebrated with a wedding dinner fit for royalty.
(Carla) All the rest of the food we had prepared was offered along with salmon, rice, asparagus, broccoli and potatoes with béchamel sauce. There were lavish desserts. After the banquet there were toasts and speeches. Danish wedding cake was presented to the bride and groom. It looked like a marzipan Christmas tree, made with rings of cake narrowing in diameter to one last tiny ring on the top, surmounted by roses and firecrackers. The top ring was presented to the couple of the day and Pu broke off pieces of the rest until all the guests had some to eat or take home. I saved a piece for Mick, tucked into my napkin and stowed in my sweater coat pocket.
(Carla) I sang the last song of the evening as a benediction at about 11 PM: “O Taste and See How Gracious the Lord Is.”
Monday, June 13, 2005
(Carla) I shake my head trying to think of how to describe this day! It was a whirlwind of people and food. I thought that there would be a let-up after the wedding day, as the ceremony was over, the massive food preparations were complete—or so we thought—and we had been asked out to brunch to say good-bye to Jonathan, one of the Danish phalange who was off to his flight home. That sounded easy enough!
However, Jonathan never showed up. A dozen other people did, all wanting a bit of breakfast. I thanked my stars that I had done all the dishes before bed since very shortly, every cup and glass in the house was newly taken. Croissants appeared, mercifully, and a riotous two hours was spent in company with children kicking a soccer ball around, teenagers playing guitar or chatting and adults bringing things back and taking things away. Pu and Peter were gone doing errands the whole morning and into the afternoon and we managed as best we could.
(Carla) Just when the last breakfast dish was washed, a contingent of fourteen showed up wanting a bit of lunch. Vee and I emptied the refrigerator and created what we could: strawberries and cream from the wedding supper, the leftover salmon made into a salad, the leftover potatoes made into another salad, the remaining cheese sliced and the Iranian bread pulled out to serve. Pu’s son, Ocean, had asked Aunt Ue to make a special vegetarian soup for him, and she was in the midst of doing that when the onslaught started, so she made more soup! And more soup. I think she made four full pots of her authentic Japanese veggie and noodle soup before the table was satisfied. Richard Evans, another biodynamic farmer from Plawhatch Farm, came by with a wedding gift basket and brought homemade dark bread. In the end, we had a handsome lunch!
Pu’s kitchen groaned under the massive piles of dishes dirtied during this four-hour feast and so we spent some time restoring the kitchen to order and taking to their compost heap substantial offerings from all the pre-wedding preparations.
(Carla) By sundown (about 9:30 PM), the house was restored to order at last and the waves of people had left town. Just when we thought all was safely quiet, Pu and Peter came back from Plawhatch Farm, where they had been planting beans, with Simon, a 19-year-old Plawhatch interne from Austria. He was fresh-faced and starving, having not eaten since arriving at Plawhatch at 5:30 that morning. No one else had eaten supper either, so we all geared up and found the makings for another big meal, using up all the Chinese take-away leftovers and the béchamel sauce for pasta. This, oddly, was the heaviest cooking day of our journey! Remind me not to open a restaurant! This would not be my choice of environments for everyday!
(Carla) I have never gone to bed wearier nor slept more deeply. The marathon wedding had wrecked my fragile shoulders and I was enormously grateful for the comfort of the “articulated bed” which pampered my body and nurtured me so well.
Tuesday, June 14, 2005
(Carla) I was up early and so was able to bid Pupie and Peter bon voyage as they left on their honeymoon at 6:30 AM. They have chosen to revisit Peter’s childhood home, Faenu, an island off the coast of Denmark. They shall return on June 22. After bathing, feeding the animals, taking my morning medicine and neatening the place, I went back to bed and slept the sleep of the just most of the rest of the morning! Exhaustion had overtaken me completely.
(Carla) Vara and I both surfaced at eleven or so and I confessed to her a great need for red meat. We went in search of a good burger and found one at a worthy place called the Foresters Arms. Vara was driving Pu’s car, which was right-hand drive with a stick shift working exactly opposite the way a standard USA shift works. And the traffic is on the left side of the road, making a clever puzzle of the task of getting from here to the village and back. She was a champion! We emerged from the trip unscathed, our first British money in our pockets, our first food bought.
(Carla) We set to work on Jim’s agenda. He had transcribed several old session tapes for our L/L Research Transcription Project and used some of the words from those tapes in creating songs for his group, The Smyeurkers, now renamed Tatoine. He wanted to re-record these words digitally to reduce the background noise on the original audiocassette tapes. We set up his equipment and did that.
(Carla) When Vara returned, he coached her on the use of the lavaliere microphone he was donating to our cause. It will be very helpful to have a self-contained microphone to record the talks I will give. He left us with the CD recording equipment that we will be able to use all through our stay here.
Jim had also come with a desire to have a channeling session so we set up next for that. Synchronistically, in my continuing efforts to whittle down the pile of snail mail I had brought with me, I had just opened a letter from a Portuguese gentleman whose questions were remarkably similar to Jim’s. Jim obligingly agreed to sit for Amadeu’s questions as well as his own, so we had a combined session! What a boon to have both sets of questions addressed!
My physical distortions seemed to worsen with this session, long as it was, and I went back to bed while Vara and Jim spent the sweet evening hours burning in their fire pit Peter and Pupie’s collection of pre-wedding boxes, bales and cardboard, which had mounted to epic proportions and which they had intended to burn before they left. I awoke at nearly 11 PM and made some scrambled eggs for the assembled. The fire was burnt out and so were we! We made an early night of it, putting Jim up for the night in Peter and Pu’s bedroom.
Wednesday, June 15, 2005
(Carla) I awoke, bathed and went back to bed until Jim Kent and Vara rose about 8 AM. We bade him good-bye about nine o’clock. Vara and I had tea and contemplated the day. I told Vee that she looked wasted; she informed me that I looked the same. We agreed to go back to bed and slept well again for some hours.
(Carla) We went into the village after lunching and lay in more stocks of our favorite foods. My stationery box had gone missing, vanishing completely, so we looked for a new supply but were unsuccessful. We agreed to go into East Grinstead, a much larger town, on another day to search further, and returned home.
(Carla) I began to organize seed thoughts for my speech. I will use this speech template for all five talks, although I am sure the different crowds will bring far different discussions from me. Vara got me all set up on Traveller and I began to make a key word search on “love” from the Law of One, Book One. However, I had set up on my bed and almost immediately fell asleep! At 5:30 PM or so Nikki Williams called and said she would collect us for tea, so Vara and I changed into proper tea dress and we set out to the village.
(Carla) Over juice, latte, tea and cola at “Java and Jazz,” a tiny bistro in Forest Row, we had a wide-ranging and energizing conversation that sparked Vara and me into continuing the conversation after she had dropped us off. Nikki said, among many other things, that she felt she would like to interview me for a film she is working on now.
Nikki is not only a shamaness, goddess and sound healer; she is also a moviemaker in the middle of an epic project: a DVD about people who wish to affect transformation at this time of rebirth in the planet itself. The idea for the film came to her some months ago when she found an article about a Mayan gathering which was being planned in order to fulfill an ancient legend about the so-called end times, which the Mayans as well as a number of other sources, including those of Ra, say is upon the people of our planet. The legend runs that when every drum of a certain type is sounded at once with intention, the healing of the Earth will be achieved. Nikki has long been an advocate for the transformational needs of both our planet and its people and this riveted her. Money came in most providentially so she could make this trip to South America, and off she went with camera in hand to film the ritual. She has persisted since then, filming interviews with perhaps four dozen people so far who have in one way or another been engaged in attempting to create a harmonious transition to what the Ra group calls fourth density and what many people have called the New Age or the Age of Aquarius. We arranged to find a time when the sun was just right for doing that interview, plus a channeling session. We parted from Nikki feeling we had met a truly kindred spirit.
(Carla) When we got home, Vara picked up a pack of Sacred Path cards, which are heavily influenced by Native American sources both North and South, East and West, and we shared a fascinating mosaic of music, conversation and readings as Vara idly selected a total of five cards from the deck of 44 that interested her especially and read the cards. It turns out this is almost precisely how one is “supposed” to use that deck! The images on those cards were endlessly provocative and touched into both of our processes as well as the process we as a group are moving through in setting up the foundations of Avalon. Then we started into the information backing up those cards in the book that accompanies the cards. The Death of the Shaman card especially spoke to me. It was midnight before we gave up this magical moment and let the night take us to sleep.
Thursday, June 16, 2005
(Carla) I awoke the latest in years, about 9 AM, bathed my body with happy prayers in Pu’s wonderfully capacious tub, talked with my healing angels and invoked the undines in the water, asking for their loving wisdom. My body had somewhat failed after the marathon of wedding activities and Jim Kent’s extended session. I wish to be very conscious about maintaining its health, for we have much ahead both in terms of travel demands and in terms of the physical cost to me of doing appearances and sessions.
We continued the neatening process of the post-wedding, restoring to the house its magical peace and simplicity. Armloads of presents went up to Peter and Pu’s bedroom for them to open when they return home. Then I sat down in the tranquil, pale light to begin organizing seed thoughts for my speech. I sorted quotations and reflected on their arrangement while Vara began on the accumulated laundry, which was quite a task, since Pu and Peter had left a large amount behind and Vara and I both had a week’s worth to wash. The washer is quite small, matching the house with its very little rooms. It fits under a counter in the front porch space, as does the fridge in the kitchen. One does very small loads and there is no dryer. It was raining, so we could not use the clothesline, and—wanting to spare any surprise guests the view of our personal effects—Vee hung our garments anywhere she could find some free air space in the upstairs of the house.
At lunchtime, Matthias arrived to wheel me up the path to his and Joan’s house, “Applesham,” for a shared meal. Our conversation was a winding path through principles of biodynamic farming, Rudolph Steiner’s philosophy and numerous other things, including a long dissertation from me on channeling, which Matthias requested. It was a welcome chance to work on my speech, at least that bit of it in which I cover this topic! As I gazed at their bower of grapes and listened to Joan’s quiet voice, Matthias’ hearty Dutch accent and Vara’s pleasant alto, I felt, without being able to explain it, that we had crossed through a doorway into some slightly altered and magical world. Vee said she too was in a state that was somewhat altered from consensus reality.
(Carla) She pulled out the Sacred Path cards and continued to explore its synchronicities, and we found music that fed into the stream of coincidences and seed thoughts that were so well feeding our personal processes. We both had the sense, rare among humans, that we were walking in and out of each other’s deep mind and sharing one archetypal process, as though our spirits were walking through rooms in one house, recognizable from the décor as “Carla” and “Vara” but also containing shared spaces. Neither of us are women with boundary problems, both having firm and even tough limits to our personal space and holding our power. We were consciously allowing this process to take place and talked about the experience as it unfolded, letting the night grow late before we could accept the thought of blowing out our candle and letting the day go. I think it was a pivotal evening for us and perhaps for Avalon. Our “good-nights” were full of gratitude.
Friday, June 17, 2005
(Carla) Blessedly, the day dawned warmer than any time since we arrived, and I could dress in a T and jeans and open all the doors and windows to the fresh breezes. I continued to work on the speech template and get it ready for Vara to format in order to maximize clarity of form, so I could glance down and get the gist of my pattern quickly, Vara then did this and printed it out for me, so I was free to start considering other things, like this journal! I had done no writing since June 9th, which left me with a very rich tapestry of over a week’s experiences to record, and I worked on that until I found myself drowsing and went back to bed for yet another magical nap.
(Carla) The mattress on my hospital bed, or “articulated” bed, as the British call it, was becoming quite creased and uncomfortable, and I had awoken in some discomfort so I became reluctantly convinced that we must change the mattress. We arranged things in order that, when the two men coming for channeling sessions arrived, we could get their help in switching that mattress for two futons which were under Vara’s bed upstairs, having been stored there after wedding guests left.
Vara had worked the morning away continuing the very slow laundering process, still dealing with the rain and drizzle and being unable to dry on the clothesline outdoors and working on e-mail on Pu’s computer upstairs.
We had patties of burger and cheese with onions for lunch and went into the village to pick up food and household items the Haghighi-Brinch larder had run out of. I discovered a marvelous little bookshop in the back of the local organic vegetable store, called “Seasons,” and came home with quite a stack of books for the L/L Research Library on bio-dynamics and the spiritually lived life, as well as two local folk songbooks, a passion of mine.
Returning home, we got ready for Ian Bond and David Troy, both of whom wished to receive personal channeling sessions. We set up the equipment Jim Kent had left for our use on the back deck and checked the microphone. Things seemed to work well. What a relief! When they came, we sat down to prepare for the sessions. I find that normally I can find a way to re-create the questions people bring in such a way as to enhance the Quo’s ability to respond without infringement of free will. The shift in attitude is from the client asking hesitantly about something and asking if his feelings are “right” to the client owning and taking responsibility for his opinions and feelings about what is happening in his process and asking for confirmation and comments. This is a delicate process where I cannot declare things the client is NOT sure of, so it took quite a while for us to satisfy ourselves that their questions were the most clear and crystallized they could be.
(Carla) I went into my little bedroom to rest and tune for the two sessions and after about half an hour we had the session for Ian on the back deck. The weather held perfectly. After it was over I rested quietly for another half hour and we started to set up outside again for the second session, but the people living next door had returned home for the evening and children’s play and conversation were increasingly intrusive, with loud music drifting across the fence as well. So we moved the session for David indoors. These sessions can be powerful experiences for those coming to them, and I think both men were perhaps more than usually stunned and delighted! That lifted my heart. Their generosity was such that they took us back to the Foresters Arms where Vara had a steak and I had mushroom soup made with real cream and fresh thyme. It was an exquisite meal and very much appreciated.
(Carla) Back at the house at 10 PM or so, we bade them good-bye and continued our rambling conversation, listening to Robbie Robertson’s wonderful CD, Music for the Native Americans. Many resonances with our Avalon project kept surfacing and we talked and listened until midnight, relinquishing the day slowly and with great affection.
Saturday, June 18, 2005
(Carla) I woke at dawn with discomfort of various kinds and had a long and healing bath. Helios was back, shining and smiling! A hawk soared across the sky out the bathroom window as I left the tub feeling much refreshed. I felt that our first opportunity to share with people in this speech was being given good omens indeed.
My body was asking for more rest and I went back to bed, rising again at about 11 AM. I am normally somewhat inclined towards sleeplessness but not on this trip! Spirit has taken over and I go down to deep sleep like a drugged woman. I am most grateful for this nurturance.
(Carla) I continued working on the journal, catching up into June 16th’s entry, until 4 PM, when we were set to drive to St. Albans, Hertfordshire. Meanwhile Vara continued her various threads of work, finally drying the last of the laundry on sunny outdoor lines and continuing to peck away at her e-mail. Matthias came over to cut the Haghighi-Brinch’s grass and offering to tend the sunflower and calendula seedlings, which await planting.
(Carla) We left him working as we sailed off to St. Albans in Peter’s Peugeot. Almost immediately, we got “lost” from the careful map Ian had given us, so our entire trip there, about a two-hour journey, was spontaneous guesswork. We became lost for real when we took the local exit to St. Albans and then somehow wound up back on the same M-25, which we had just left. The next exit was some distance away, and led to nowhere on our map, but we saw some numbers that looked hopeful, so rather than try to come back the way we came—traffic was very badly backed-up—we stayed on back lanes and wound up getting to the church five minutes before our appointed date with the church’s staff.
(Carla) Irene had been supposed to meet us but instead we met Paul, a church official who informed us that, sadly, Irene had an auto accident and was in much pain with whiplash. Paul was wonderfully hospitable in filling in, ushering us into tiny St. Albans Spiritualist Church in the middle of that beautiful town. He let us change clothing from travel jeans to appearance clothing and helping us set up to record the speech so we can capture it for the web site.
The discussion went very well. I followed my template to some extent but before the next appearance I shall need to re-work it so that there is less prose and more spareness to the words, less sentences and more phrases. These things evolve! We had a tea break after my initial talk, and I mean that literally! People got mugs of good British tea, and in that heat I could not imagine taking any myself! Tea, cookies—oops, biscuits—and conversation flowed for a good half-hour. After the break I found that people wished for a channeling session rather than Q and A, so we did that. It was well received and indeed I felt that the Q’uo group worked with the two dozen or so people far better than had I as a speech-giver.
(Carla) Back on the road at 11 PM, we headed for the service area on the M-25, which Vee found with amazing accuracy—the roundabouts and British way of signage had me completely buffaloed and I was so bewildered it was comical. We had a late supper of pasta and potato crisps.
Back on the road, again (this time at 11:33), we had a comical moment indeed after we got off the well-lit M-25 and into the countryside in the dead of night. Vara wanted to use our high beams, and in experimenting with the Peugeot’s light system, instead of turning on the high beam, she turned the lights off completely. Hurtling down the road in utter blackness, my comment was, very quietly, “Hoo-hoo, sphincter tight!” Something about the very quiet little hoot I gave when I said that struck Vee’s funny bone and we laughed all the rest of the way back to Forest Row. We made the return trip in 90 minutes, arriving at our front door at 1:07 AM. I think perhaps we exceeded a few speed limits! I was never gladder to see my own bed, and we both retired.
(Carla) I lit my candle and called Jim to let him know I was home and we had a great conversation. I found that he has managed to come to an understanding of access road technicalities on Avalon, which really has eluded me for weeks. Jim, left with the problem, had corresponded with our lawyer until he truly grasped the situation. He read me the letter he is sending to our neighbors there, the Hineses and Mr. Kidwell, and for the first time I understood the situation fully, I think. It is odd to be a continent away from the farm and yet be vitally interested in handling the matter. Jim and I are donating this farm to L/L Research, but we cannot give the gift freely until the access road is legally settled as being ours, so before we can donate, we must acquire legal rights to the road which is etched out of the side of the ravine of our feeder creek. Further, since Jim and I need to set aside a few acres for our own use before giving the farm away in order to preserve the non-profit status of L/L Research, we need to establish our own right of way off of that access road. In Jim’s capable hands, this is now moving forward. I fell asleep happy as a lark.
Sunday, June 19, 2005
(Carla) The day dawned truly warm for the first time, brilliant and bright, and I opened both front and back door to the breeze. After the rigors of the St. Albans trip my body was still fatigued and sore, so I had some of Vara’s homemade chicken cream soup and went back to bed, sleeping until past noon. Vara and I lunched and planned until Nikki showed up for the filming session.
The sunlight through the trees was dappled and sparkling and we got a good interview and a channeling session filmed, I think. Vara did not get to be part of the interview, for which I was heartily sorry. However, my idea about her planting in the background went south when we found that Nikki knew exactly where she wanted to film and that it was nowhere near where the seedlings were to go.
The session was intense and extremely positive, Nikki radiating real joy and expressing much heartfelt validation of what I said.
(Carla) She invited us to share her evening meal and off we went back to her little shed, which she has transformed into an inner space of surpassing comfort, elegance and quirky style with her Indian and shamanic mix of objects. It was a wonderful meal, with her chicken soup and Brie with corn cakes made of rice and barley flour. She also offered an excellent potato salad, which contained apples, gherkins, chives and spring onions. This is something I shall have to try recreating when we return to Kentucky! It was a splendid meal indeed, a real treat for me, as usually when people try to feed me I simply drown in their food. I am pretty omnivorous at mid-day, but we were eating after the peace meditation time of 9 PM. This food was both delicious and edible to my cranky tummy. Hats off to you, Nikki! She said that a man who was fond of her and had been a macrobiotic chef for a decade in San Francisco spent two weeks with her at one point cooking three meals a day and teaching her how to eat well. I believe it.
We did get to the overtoning session we had wished to do before, at tea, the other day, and that was fun. Playing with sound creates a spontaneous, drifting environment where listening to the process of making tones, breathing and making more tones becomes an adventure in beauty and chance, choice and cooperation. She shared with us some of Tom Kenyon’s toning on CD as well, a challenging and very shamanic energy.
We also were treated to a viewing of a short film Nikki had done on the technique of inversion therapy. This is the kind of healing she had at one time been quite well known for offering and her film was riveting. I think I could happily spend a lifetime getting to know Nikki, which is the second time this trip I have strongly resonated with a previous utter stranger, the other person being Joan Brinch, Peter’s mother. We arrived home past midnight, having only let go of the evening because nerve damage from the St. Albans trip was beginning to torque up again and I knew what lay ahead! We could easily have spent all night just sharing energy. This trip has been an adventure in new and wonderful people!
Monday, June 20, 2005
(Carla) Vee’s footsteps up the stairs awoke me at 6 AM out of the kind of nightmare that goes far beyond the surface of the subconscious mind. Doing the overtoning with Nikki last night had probably set me up for entering deeper into the archetypal mind and its clear dreaming than on most nights. I felt upon awakening as though I had been dreaming all night. It was as though I was in a movie and also watching it. The story line was quite dark.
I had been handed a sheet of paper at the beginning of the dream and asked by a very terrified young man, whom I vaguely remember as being connected with Andrija Puharich back in the late ’70s, to take it back to America with me and give it to someone there. He said he was in fear for his life as long as he had this paper and could not bear the responsibility for carrying it further. I glanced at it. The whole outer side of the paper was blank and a quick glance at the in-folded side showed only a very brief word or two. I folded the 8 ½ x 11 inch paper in half and then in three and stuffed it into my jeans pocket. I had the impression that this was a task that was part of the work of a network of people and events, like gathering articles for a journal issue, rather than an isolated message to be delivered.
I was approached almost immediately by a very polished, suave, wealthy and cultured gentleman who invited me to his villa for a stay. In the dream there was some connection between us because of which I felt I could trust him. He was most charming and his home was palatial. We sat in the garden for a long while and then, working it into the conversation casually, he asked me for the paper I had been given. I feigned ignorance of what he spoke, and he did not press the matter, but the next morning I found that my room had been ransacked. I had kept the paper on my body, moving it to my brassiere and then to my nightgown’s pocket and they had not found it. Over the next day or two, my host remained utterly courteous but I no longer trusted him and felt I had to keep changing where I hid this paper. Several times I went through mental hoops remembering where I had put the thing, but I always had it.
In the end she took me to a lean-to shed in a clearing in a poor section of town, which backed up to a patchy forest. It was enclosed on three sides only and the carcass of a cow’s head and upper body lay in one corner. The complete carcasses of three horses lay side by side across the center of the shed, their necks and noble heads lying nested side by side. These disemboweled bodies were surrounded with pools of their excrement, bowels, intestines and blood. She indicated that I was to lie down there and I would be unseen by the many gendarmes who were swarming all around this shed. I knew I would be safe there, that no one would look for me in such an abattoir. I noticed with faint surprise that I was not offended, as I normally would be, to place my body on such a dirt floor with its rivers of offal that I could not avoid and I sniffed to see if it smelled, but I could not detect any bad odors. In the dream, I thought to myself that was unusual! I was quite overwhelmed with thankfulness for Vara’s gypsy child self and my safety, as gendarmes continued to swarm around the clearing and I gratefully sank to the filthy floor, lying down to sleep, very content and sleepy, knowing I would be all right here.
As I was going to sleep in the dream, Vara’s footsteps awakened me to the dawning day. I wanted to ask her to listen to my dream, to tell it over to her to help me remember it. Oddly enough, I also found my note to myself: “Garbage!” We had forgotten to put it out and pick-up was early in the morning. Somehow, Vee coped with getting the garbage out and then talking with me about the dream.
The ensuing two-hour discussion we shared led us back through much processing we had done in the last week of late-night discussions and especially to the talk Vara and I had about being versus doing after the St. Albans trip. She and I had both, we felt, worked too hard in reaching out to people, forgetting simply to radiate from a point of effortless being. We also remembered the card, The Shaman’s Death, and were riveted by that coincidence. I know I will return to this rich tapestry of symbolism many times.
(Carla) We packed clothing, computer, and books to sell after the Newcastle talk and called a taxi to take us to the East Grinstead train station, where we rode to Victoria Station in London, then took the tube to King’s Cross Station and boarded for the trip to Newcastle. I tried to do correspondence but the ride was too bumpy to write neatly, so I drowsed until I discovered what that activity did to my neck! Not good. I read the rest of the way there.
(Carla) Newcastle seemed very industrial, riding into Newcastle Station. Sue Brians picked us up and drove out to the sea, where luxurious town houses are built in rows that are all built like one building. She has a place in one of these extended buildings up an incredible number of stairs, perhaps four flights (Vara—16 steps to the outer door plus 48 inside). Picture Vara and Sue hauling our two heavy cases and assorted purses!
Sue’s apartment is ancient and elegant, with crown moldings, high ceilings and a view of the ocean and a large ruin she called The Priory sewing the land to the huge expanse of sky by the North Sea. She plied us with wine and, later, a light supper and more wine! I went to bed Titus Andronicus, merry, very tired and thankful I had given us this day to travel and not tried to talk on the same day we traveled. It was a tough trip for me.
(Carla) The room Sue gave me has a balcony, as does the living room, but does not look out over the sea. It is, however, quite delightful and the duvet on the bed is perfectly gorgeous. My last thought as I sank into sleep was to rejoice in the fact that it was not only lovely but also soft and endlessly comforting.
Tuesday, June 21, 2005
(Carla) I awoke to the gulls wheeling past my bedroom window in Sue’s aerie and found her up before me. She fixed me tea and we spent a leisurely morning watching my first British TV and chatting about the day to come. Off she went to work and Vara joined me for more TV- it was most enjoyable to catch a segment of Stargate as well as an episode of Star Trek Voyager, both old favorites of Mick’s and mine. I had a shower and caught up my journal, then focused on re-working my lecture notes, working until I felt that the notes more clearly reflected the essence of points I wished to cover. Many words of great power and beauty from the Ra Material were deleted in order that the ones remaining had pride of place. That felt really good.
We lunched out of Sue’s chock-full freezer and prepared for the trip to David Rankin’s house in the coastal countryside. He picked us up towards 6 PM. Unfortunately, neither Sue nor he had been able to hook Traveler up to a printer so I could not use the notes! The work had been done in my head, however, and I found in the event that this sufficed very well.
David’s house was a generous chalet with gardens and decks that stretched down towards the sea. Vara, he and I explored these decks as they constituted a lovely venue for the talk, but it was too chilly to be comfortable outside, so we went indoors and debated between the living room and the dining room, finally choosing the dining room. Sue had brought an audiocassette recorder to replace the CD recording equipment we could not carry by train, and Vara carefully set up that, plus my chosen chair. I felt like Goldilocks, as I could not find a good one. One was too big, another had no arms and I slid helplessly off yet another. Vara scoured the place for a good lumbar pillow and found a velvet lap shawl, which rolled up to make a perfect support and by the time guests arrived I was ready.
I spoke to a group of ten people, including folks from technical and executive backgrounds and humble ones as well, all brought together by their interest in what I had to say. It was most enjoyable to have a small group and I opened the meeting just as we would at home on a Sunday at one of our public meetings, going around the circle, having people introduce themselves and say a bit about their background and why they were there. I started off and had mentioned that I was married. As we went around the circle, each person, almost, said that he or she was divorced so when it got back around to me I told them, “Well, I was divorced, too, in 1968! I belong!’ This drew a relieved laugh from the group and we got down to work.
I set out to work through the material but found that I was being drawn to emphasize the scientific information, probably because of the preponderance of technically minded people there. After about an hour I called a “tea break” and we went into David’s kitchen. He had bought out Marks and Spencer’s top-of-the-line canapés and the women liberated the incredible array of cheeses, quiches, fruits, sausages, chicken, salads and the rest from their plastic, found serving spoons and plates and David decanted wines and spirits. This was no small tea! Gazing at the intake of the bibulous crowd I decided against lecturing further or channeling and we settled, after an hour of time off for food, into a Q and A session back in the dining room. I remember especially the plight of Alan Rankin, no relation to David and a most successful entrepreneur who was having a good deal of trouble with his arm due to nerve damage. My heart went out to him as I also experience that precise form of discomfort, due in my case to arthritis. The questions tended to focus on politics—the hostility and rage felt within the people on the street and the negative conspiracies. It was most challenging to thread my way back to the Law of One and fourth density. I enjoyed my wine and did my best!
(Carla) It was late before we could let this party end. I felt as though the group had created an optimal occasion for exchanging information and, hopefully, some inspiration as well. We ended up fribbling with dishes and putting away food and David delivered us back to the seaside town house in which Sue lives about midnight. I called to let Jim know we were back and we had our nightly talk and said the Lord’s Prayer together, a habit that has been kept this whole trip. Sue fixed tea and we chatted until after 2 AM and subsided into bed, happy with a good day’s sharing.
Wednesday, June 22, 2005
(Carla) I woke quite late for me, almost 9 AM, and we began to make ready to take the train back to East Sussex. Sue took us to pick up Leslie, a woman who had been part of the group at David’s and who works with David and Sue, and we all went to the train station. We made our train with minutes to spare and enjoyed a tabled accommodation back to London.
I was having fits with the way the train seats were made. British rail service is very good, but the way they make the seats has no kindness in it for my particular body. By London I was in difficulty, with several different kinds of nerve and joint pain. Vara coped in her knightly manner with the heavy luggage as we wended our way from King’s Cross to Victoria on London’s underground railway system. It was with great relief that we found a pub called “Wetherspoons” in Victoria Station and sat down for a pair of most delicious cheeseburgers before taking the train to East Grinstead and home base.
(Carla) We arrived home by taxi to find that Peter and Pupak had also arrived. Their honeymoon had been just heavenly, they said, and Pupie kept saying how absolutely beautiful Denmark was. “You must see it, Carla,” was her refrain. It was so good to see her sweet face, and Peter’s handsome one, and know that they had a good time after such an intense wedding time. They seemed exhausted, still, but there was a glow about them that was lovely to see. Pupak believes she may well be pregnant! What an exciting time for them. This is something they have hoped for in their marriage but to have it happen so soon is miraculous! We shall have to wait and see if her premonition is correct.
(Carla) I was never so glad to see my own “articulated” bed and spent much of the remainder of the evening there while we talked about all that had transpired while we had been apart. I napped after dinner and Vara forged ahead with re-packing for the trip to Bath tomorrow, refurbishing my weekly kit of pills and washing our accumulated laundry, as we were both out of various items, notably underwear. Jim called while she was still at her tasks, and after our prayers were finished Vara and I had a last chat of the day. Compared to the last few days we were in bed early, the house subsiding into sleep by midnight.
Thursday, June 23, 2005
(Carla) Awakening to the dawn, I journaled, opened the door to Charcoal and Toffee, the Haghighi-Brinch cats, and sank luxuriously back into bed for more healing sleep, feeling still distinctly done to a turn by the travel of yesterday. At nearly 9 AM Pupak’s smiling face appeared and it was time for me to come to the surface. Peter and Vara soon appeared and we enjoyed breakfast and conversation before having a morning offering. Vara and Pu went to East Grinstead to get a rental car for the trip to Bath while I took a final look at my lecture notes, wrote thank you notes to the people who have so kindly shared time and energy with us this last week, had a wonderful bath and prayers and allowed Pupie to minister to my back with a wonderful massage and Tiger Balm.
(Carla) Vara had gone to bed late after doing laundry and amazingly that which we needed had dried. She collected our things from the inside lines and packed for the trip in her inimitably tidy and efficient style, which I increasingly have come to admire. Pu had decided to stay in Sussex and prepare for Saturday night’s talk there instead of coming with us to Bath, so Vee and I left Forest Row by car at about 3:30. It was a gloriously sunny, warm day and we sailed down M25 and M4 to Bath, listening to Robbie Robertson’s Music for the Native Americans album. As Bath opened up before us we attempted to follow the tortuous directions but to no avail, for we ran out of streets that went where the directions suggested. We asked for alternatives from two young men who stood pondering an opened car “bonnet” in an improbably narrow, steep lane on our last named street. Following their instruction, we ended up with a T intersection on the road we did, in fact, want. However, we no longer knew if we were above or below our next desired turn. “Which way?” asked Vara. With traffic behind us, I said, “Left,” and off we went.
At that point we were about a block from the correct street to Jill Smith’s house. Had Vara followed the Elkinsian rule of asking me for the correct turn and then going precisely otherwise, we would have been landed. However, she adventurously followed my advice, and for the next thirty minutes or so we had a fantastic voyage through the precipitous streets, Roman, Georgian and Victorian architecture and stunning public buildings of the city. I did not view a wide or straight street in all that time and “going around the block” to get back to the preferred direction was out of the question. San Francisco, I reflected, would look mighty flat to me after this. The British habit of either placing street names somewhere on one of the corner’s buildings or leaving it off altogether did not simplify the quandary. At first comprehensibly lost, we eventually became so tangled as to release all thoughts of finding our street, and Vara settled on re-finding the M4 and entering the city again.
At this precise point of total release we saw the exact street we needed. So we crazy Americans created a spectacular traffic jam, turned severely right, up yet another steep hill and narrow lane, and voila, there was Jill, waving at us from the window of her hilltop home. We pulled up into her driveway and walked up a series of flights of wide steps into her lovely garden.
(Carla) Our hostess in Bath, Jill Smith, welcomed us in. It took us a bit of time to recover from the giddy laughter that had swept us as we got progressively more lost. Many times Vara had spotted a likely hotel or restaurant from which we could make a call to receive help from our hostess, but Bath is enormously popular and parking spaces were nil anywhere, and rules about stopping apparently quite strict, so we could never get a purchase long enough to come to a halt anywhere. Around and around we had gone until we were quite silly. Jill sat us down—and what a fine table she had, with chair arms made for propping sore shoulders—and we enjoyed the breezes while we sipped cranberry juice and then some white wine and shared stories. I gazed around the walled garden and was drawn through its arch to more lawns and a lovely Victorian arbor trellised with Virginia creeper. A Buddha was nestled within and the space was cunning and serene beyond description.
As the light waned we sat down to a feast of roast lamb, roast parsnips and potatoes, gravy and green vegetables. Jill is by nature a tall, delicate and slight woman of immense charm and, like Vara, possessed of a roaring metabolism and appetite. I pecked; they ate! Our talk continued to rove over all the coincidences and synchronicities that have shaped the last little while for all three of us.
(Carla) After sorbet and fresh fruit Jill set up her Reiki table and gave me an hour’s session, which she shall repeat, she says, several times before we leave on Saturday morning. Her hands felt possessed of a curiously heavy and almost palpable energy, unique to her of any Reiki master’s touch I had experienced before and I was in a radically altered state immediately. By the end of the session I was experiencing no nerve or muscle pain whatsoever.
Her energy has an honesty which created for me an experience of being taken beyond myself, beyond the “normal” routine I have when people share touch therapy with me of praying for them, offering thanks and other non-spontaneous prayers. These prayers on my part are well intended and I do not criticize myself for the habit of consciously sharing back energy to the healer, but this was the day I saw into the pretension of being the pray-er instead of being in a state where the prayer took me. Indeed that is what happened, for throughout the session many images, prayers, senses of deep feeling and being lifted up swept through me, including the most profound gratitude for Jill’s generous service.
After the session I was languorous and not tracking very well, and we prepared for bed. Jim had called during the session and I called him back, changed into my nightgown and we washed up and sank into the wonderful duvets and down pillows in Jill’s guest room.
Friday, June 24, 2005
(Carla) I was awakened by the harsh sound of a bird calling Vara’s name, “Va-RA, Va-RA” outside our window. After journaling I had a luxurious bath and sat down to write some letters. Vara and Jill appeared and we breakfasted and began our winding conversation again, finding connections everywhere. Our talk had turned to trees, and Jill found a friend’s writing on that subject, which I shall copy as it is so beautiful and apposite. This piece is by Nancy Gibson, a friend of Jill’s. It is excerpted from Winds of Change:
TREES
Our roots reach down to draw up LIFE itself. Up from earth blending with sky, TREE gifts its space with the JOY OF BEING and sends it budding, blossoming, soaring. Every leaf shines glory, every branch grows LOVE.
As Humans awake to visions of the Heart, you will discover luminous landscapes, other worlds, sustaining energies. Though earth’s natural organism has been distorted by uninformed human practices, TREE appreciates measures under way to restore this planet’s nature metabolic balance.
TREE congratulates Humanity’s growing awareness of the needs and wealth of our resident spaceship. We have watched for eons as your race becomes. We continue as allowed to siphon energy into this world—to breathe it more fully, to comfort and inspire with our blessed flowers, fragrances, fruits, greenery, shapes, colors, shade and shadowed sunlight.
We sing with Wind.
We flow with Rain.
We inhale SUN’S nourishing fire.
We create homes for creatures north south, east, west and in-between.
Nancy Gibson’s work is handwritten or on bits of typescript and I am hoping that we will be able to offer her a niche on www.bring4th.org for her writing, to share it with the internet browsers who visit our sites.
(Carla) Another Reiki session for me transpired after our morning meal and again I sat down to address the snail mail I had brought with me. After lunch Vara had a session of Reiki. I finished all but two letters—a banner day for catching up correspondence. Vee collected the lecture notes, recording equipment and books to offer for sale and we dressed for tea with Jill’s daughter, Helen, and for the appearance at the Bath spiritualist Church.
Helen lives in the Royal Crescent, about which I had read many times in my Regency romances. From her windows I finally saw a proper British ha-ha. The view of Bath spread out spectacularly below her Georgian, small-paned windows and she told us about the architecture of the place. The façade of the crescent-shaped, blocks-long building was done all at once. Each house number was bought and then the houses were built to suit the owners behind each façade. The adjoining Circus was designed and built at the same time.
(Carla) After tea with Helen, we all went to the church, which was down another incredibly narrow lane. There was no distinguishable building in which the church lay. Rather, it occupied space behind two doors, the church itself to the left and offices to the right. Alan welcomed us and Carole brought me upstairs in the offices so I could sit and tune for the talk and channeling to come. Vara set up equipment and books and came back to put the microphone for taping on me. We were off.
It was a crowd of about two dozen. I spoke for about an hour and then we had a tea break and went into a channeling session. The whole was well received and we came back to our hostess’s home satisfied and weary. After a late supper, I had the incredible luxury of being given a Reiki session in my bed, where I dropped off to sleep like a stone sinking into a pond.
(Carla) I would like to place here one more piece of Nancy Gibson’s writing:
ONE?
There is no other way but ONE-
though million billion paths
may stream
like summer rain
upon the endless flow—
We are uniquely Us,
trajecting here
and there
beyond
Yet every breath and every step
draws life from that great depthless power
which we call God or Love or All
Creation or great Spirit or …
To know our Truth we just turn inward—then
Shielded from the busyness around,
Joy-That-Is shines thru Us,
hallowing the ground.”
Saturday, June 25, 2005
(Carla) Vara and I awoke early in Jill’s lovely guest bedroom with its windows letting out on to the garden along the many-flowered wall. While Vara packed up the sound equipment and our chattels I journaled and then finished the last two letters I had brought with me to answer. Let me note this rare moment in time when I am “caught up” with snail mail! It is, of course, an illusion! When we land in Louisville on Wednesday, I am sure there will be letters waiting for me and I will have a correspondence stack once again. Watching me address one letter after another, Jill asked me how I did it, since clearly there are several other things I have to do this day and every day. However, the reason I plug away at the never-ending stack is simple. “I open the letter,” I said, “And there is that soul. That brings me into that relationship and then it is effortless.” For me, that’s a big key to what I do. This life for me is all about sharing energy with each precious soul I meet.
(Carla) We had a light breakfast and bade our good-byes to beautiful Jill. The trip back to Forest Row was easy. It was, however, interminably clogged with weekend traffic from the M25 all the way back to the village. Eventually we arrived and I went back to bed to nurse my sore body, which was expressing discomfort from all the travel.
(Carla) At 4 PM we sat down to a greatly restorative and delicious meal. Pu had thoughtfully asked me what I wished for my main meal, and I had asked for hamburgers. They were wonderful! This was perhaps the single most enjoyed and completely eaten meal of this trip to date! I reworked the lecture notes to incorporate all of Pupie’s signage phrases, as she had taken key phrases from my previous notes and put up big signs all around Forest Row. When that was finished, I had again lain down to rest again while Vara printed out the new notes. Then it was time for a bath and prayers.
(Carla) Ocean had complained to Pu about my removing him from my room when I needed to dress for the wedding. Pu had asked me to speak with him, and I agreed. Ocean never admitted to his misbehavior, but we agreed to disagree, and I assured him I would do precisely the same thing again, given the situation recurred. It felt pretty much like one of those Mexican standoffs. Pu and Peter were most grateful for this conversation, in which they could see Ocean not speaking truth and my remaining patient but firm.
They went upstairs to dress and I sat down to finish tuning. I had no luck getting into my “workrooms” which comprise my metaphysical home. My gatekeeper, whom I simply call Mrs. Gate Keeper, would not let me in, saying, “It is not safe for you. You are under attack.” I worked with that, slowly becoming aware that there was, indeed, an entity clinging to me, determined to do me harm. I went through a triple psychic self-defense ritual, something I have never had to do before, but at last I felt the “cling-on” let go. I sealed that moment and began the Cherokee Morning Song from Robbie Robertson’s CD … “Wi-na-de-ya-ho” …
As I sang that first syllable of intoned sound, Ocean’s outraged scream rose shrieking from the upstairs and I realized that Ocean had been the cling-on. This is a very powerful psychic presence, this ten-year-old boy, and one in great need of limits and discipline. I honor Peter and Pupak for their devotion in dealing with him. He is truly a tough cookie. But he is in good hands with those two. I fear that his father’s influence has not been a good one, nor is that likely to change. In the event, I finished my tuning as the family came down the stairs and we were off to the Forest Row Village Hall for the talk.
The hall was perfect for the size group we had, just over a dozen, and we sat in a circle and talked for about an hour, then had a juice and sweets break with Pu’s home-made goodies and a Q-and A session. It was a good group and we enjoyed each other very much. It is easy to have a good time talking about Law of One principles! Bahir was part of the group, as were Joan and Matthias and others I had met at the wedding. We collected the flowers, food, tables, candles, altar rocks, books and sound equipment and were back home in time to relax before bed with conversation and snacks.
Sunday, June 26, 2005
(Carla) Our last Sabbath in Britain dawned lovely and wan across the blooming roses and I rose to have a quick wash up and journal before breakfast. The whole house rose fairly early and we sat down at breakfast by 8 AM. Ocean, Pupak’s son, was along and at 9 AM his tutor in Japanese arrived. We all sat down for a morning offering. Then after a half hour it was off to London for my last speech, arranged by Vuyiswa at the Theosophical Center, which was very near Grosvenor Square, where Jim and I had stayed during our visit to Pupak and Peter two winters ago. It was fun seeing the shops where we had visited to dine and browse during that visit! Peter brought us in all the way on A22, a “blue road,” so I got to see lots of villages and admire the various styles of architecture so dear to my Anglophile heart.
(Carla) The Theosophical Society was housed in a handsome building in Gloucester Place and we were offered two spacious rooms there for the meeting. We chatted on the sidewalk with all the audience, about a dozen, until the door was opened a few minutes after our arrival and we were let in. We set up a circle of chairs, arranged for the tea break, spread out our few remaining wares and settled in to create our gathering. A slight hitch arose because of a forgotten bag of sound equipment, so there was no recording done of this speech. I had to laugh at myself, for once again I had reworked my notes slightly and Vara had laboriously done the routine for printing the new version out. However, in the event, the notes stayed in my hand, on my lap and once on the floor, never referred to or glanced at.
I think the last speech went as well as all the others, although I regretted not being able to tune before the talk, as I normally would do. However, traffic was thronging all the way in to London and we took a whole extra hour arriving, so there was no opportunity for a quiet time alone. Things came through in a different order as is usual with each group, but I looked through the notes later and found I had addressed every single point except desire, and that had been touched on as I talked about taking responsibility for one’s thoughts. The group was a young one and included a couple of technically expert web site creators. I was delighted to find this out, since our “bring4th” web site has been hacked completely for the third time, and Bruce has said we must build from scratch to put our site back up on the net. Vara collected a business card from one, and the other promised me an e-mail to greet me upon our return home to Kentucky.
Our time at the Theosophical Center was shorter than the group was pleased with, so at 1:30, having washed and cleared away our dishes and re-packed the car, we went to a pub called Garfunkel’s for lunch, all except Pupak and Ocean, who needed to return to East Grinstead to return Ocean to his Dad at an appointed time too early to permit their staying for the convivial meal. It was a loving occasion, with lots of sharing, laughter and enjoyment. I was, however, dazed and sore, so could hear and see very little. I mostly sat and enjoyed the vibration of this sweet group of seekers. Ian Bond had brought his bride, who was perfectly charming and we talked about their 9-week-old son, Luke, and the joy he has given them. She and Vara, sitting on either side of me, were the only two I could hear! Poor Vee had aggravated old damage in her spine and was also hors de combat, barely able to turn her head. We were a pair!
(Carla) At length we found our way back to Forest Row. I rested back on my gloriously comfortable bed and Pupak put up her ironing board and we talked away the hours while she did the ironing and Vara did laundry and chores upstairs. It was really the first time Pu and I had been able to have girl-friend time. She took me through stories of her transformation through this last year and we both laughed and cried together. It was a blessing to have this deep time to be just us two together. About 10 PM Vara came down and we had supper. Peter joined us for a little while, then Peter went to bed and we three sat and shared together richly and leisurely until almost 2 AM. The mood was exhaustion and celebration, in equal parts; the topics profound; the stories full of feminine wisdom.
Monday, June 27, 2005
(Carla) I enjoyed an early bath and commune and then a drifting, deep conversation with Peter, who was preparing to work at Plawhatch Farm for the day. I greatly enjoyed his methodical, refined process of slicing the organic bread in very even slices, making his food for the midday meal, fixing his coffee in the Danish way and pouring it into his thermos. Just as he was leaving, Pu came downstairs to drive him to the farm and I journaled until she came back, finishing just in time for us to go walking through the garden and forest to her windowed glass-making-and-cutting shop, where she wanted to get the panes of glass which she, Jim and I had picked out in London some months ago for the collage she wishes to make for me. We have talked together several times before now in her creation process for these pieces, which we chose to name “Illumination.” She took two trips from her shop to the house to bring all the colored panes into the house and she lined them up across the oriel in my bedroom, soon now to be reinstated as her living room, and across the kitchen window spaces. She hopes to work on it and finish the pieces so Roman can bring them back when he comes to visit her this winter.
(Carla) Pu took a call from a man who had been a part of her Peace Studies Program when she was in college a decade ago or more and I lay down again to rest. Just as that call ended, Vara came down and we three enjoyed a breakfast together and then a morning offering. After our last prayers we sat down again at the table to draw angel cards for our journey home. Pu loves these cards and uses them often, and had spread them carefully around our flowers before the offering. I drew two cards: Purpose and Understanding. These are powerful angels indeed.
(Carla) Pu and I needed to shop for luggage today since Vara and I discovered we had a badly cracked bag when we got to London on June tenth. Our baggage handlers had felt it appropriate to destroy Jim’s and my last piece of wedding-present (1987) Samsonite on the journey over here. We needed to replace that bag for our trip back home. I set off with Pu in the brilliantly sunlit late morning having no premonition that this was going to be a difficult task in any way.
(Carla) Pu and I had a beautiful drive through pastoral Britain at its best, driving along winding country roads filled with arches of great trees and utterly charming English country homes and quaint shops of all descriptions on our way to Lewes, a Roman-built and greatly historic town about 40 minutes from Forest Row where Pu remembered there being a good shop for luggage. We got our money back for train tickets Vee and I had not used. We not only found the luggage we needed, but also the stationery box I needed, plus a wonderful glut of new blank note cards to refurbish it. The weary, 15-year-old soldier that had been holding my note cards since I bought Christmas cards from the Met in 1990 had been destroyed by water damage during this trip. We also found Mick the perfect coming-home gift- a hard-to-find and lovely double oven mitt of the kind he dearly loves.
It was not until Pu rammed into a “kerb” at acceleration speed doing her inimitable parking by bumping up over the curb at the roadside, that I abruptly realized psychic greeting had come to call at last on our relatively idyllic speaking tour of Britain. She spied a parking spot near the shop we wanted to visit, and—rather than decorously parallel-parking—she dove straight in at about 40 mph, intending to bounce up and over the four-inch road-edge and thusly settle into place. The car did not hop the curb but stopped cold in a jolt and transferred the force of its mass and acceleration from left front wheel to car door to my hand, wrist and shoulder as it lay along the armrest of said door.
It seems that parking is not free is Lewes. Pu and I had a cranberry presse (me) and a Latte Something (Pu) to celebrate having collected a £30 parking ticket for not paying for the place into which Pu had socked her poor Peugeot, Indigo, along that fateful kerb. The shop sold drinks AND kitchen gear, and so it was at this same store that Mick’s oven mitt was purchased. We giggled through the crisis in good style.
I was, however, in increasingly poor shape physically, from the top of my head to the tips of my fingers and toes. I have decades-old C-1 to C-2 spinal damage from rheumatoid changes involving a subluxation of those first two vertebrae, which amounts to a crookedness of neck which has occasionally almost paralyzed me in the past and which had set me down to live a life in bed for about three years in the late “80s and early “90s. This was not a small matter. I focused on being calm. As we drove back to Forest Row, I assessed the difficulty. It was escalating fairly quickly and I became concerned.
(Carla) We arrived home to find that Jim Kent had returned to pick up his sound equipment and, naturally, had settled in to enjoy a long conversation with Vara. I excused myself and said I was in physical trouble and must lie down. Jim did not get the hint! I lay in my room in increasing agony with nerve pain singing through me from head to toe for about an hour—through one complete playing of the Robbie Robertson CD—and begged Jim mentally to leave. He did not hear my mental cue. I realized that I needed to ask him right out loud to leave, regardless of manners, as I needed Vara’s help and that right quickly, for I was becoming too much in pain to think. So, in fact, I did get up and asked the poor man to please go! Now! I am not sure I have ever been ruder to anyone in my life! Jim, I apologize! Fortunately, Jim was a British gentleman to the core and gathered his equipment with the promise to “love us and leave us.” Vara and I had the house to ourselves, as Pupie had left to collect Peter from Plawhatch Farm.
After three decades of dealing with a vertebrae problem very like Christopher Reeves’, may he rest in peace and be saluted for all the good he has done for good causes while alive, I knew precisely the symptoms and the dangers involved in what I was experiencing. Chris was crippled and eventually died from his injury; received in a sudden fall from a horse. My injury is gradual and arthritic and it has not killed me or succeeded in crippling me, but I walk a constant razor’s edge as I balance doing work, living a vertical life and staying alive. I have been living out a fragile existence with this situation for decades, the neck and shoulders not broken but in compromised shape and very vulnerable to exactly the sort of injury which the sudden jolting trauma of the car had induced.
Alone at last with Vee, I explained the situation to her. She herself is not a stranger to spinal injury or pain; she knows the body’s anatomy well and has a warrior’s courage. We took thought together. The nerve pain was spinning from the very top of the head, where referred pain from the first two vertebrae inside the skull expresses, radiating down the spine to the shoulders and thoracic nerve processes and down to the base of the spine, the hips and the sciatic nerve processes, twisting and spiraling off my fingers and toes. There was massive involvement of the facial sinus mask, shoulders, arms and elbows, spine, hips and legs.
I had seen this kind of sudden trauma in my previous life translate to hospital stays, neck braces and prolonged physical rehabilitation therapy. There was a pain crescendo as well, a dire matter in the short term and tough to stop without emergency aid. And I was set for a trans-Atlantic flight on the morrow. Our loyal opposition had scored a palpable hit. Literally.
It was not Pu’s fault, as she was and will always be an artist, not a driver. She is blissfully ignorant of the laws of physics. I held no anger or animus towards her, though I did release some frustration! This had occurred, period. Now, what to do?
First, Vee and I simply focused for a minute. Then we went into a kind of slow inner dance that was so beautiful, so focused and so inspired that I can only thank Holly (my nickname for the Holy Spirit) for her guidance. We both thought of Tiger Balm, and Vee worked that gently and quickly into my skin, from the tip of my crown to my toes and fingers, giving the message to the pain of where the nerve pathways were. As she worked with the balm we visualized to my body, “This is the path out, and pain, you may go!” I prayed for all I was worth, releasing fear, calling on all the web of love that surrounds me.
Vara began a monologue about water. We are, after all, mostly water beings as bodies, as their content is over 80% water. She spoke of how water always flows, never has effort, never resists. We pictured together the pain and trauma flowing through the body’s nerve systems and out the ends of the processes involved. I don’t think either of us has ever been more highly focused.
When we were done I lay down flat and still, found the right position and rested, still meditating and praying, but mostly KNOWING that all was well. I was fortunate in that I had extra prednisone with me, and pain pills. I used both. When an hour of rest was done, I moved about to avoid spinal crystallization in the area of trauma, and then I went down again and lay quite still. By dinner, miraculously, I had begun to come back from that point of pain that creates a state of not thinking. The magic had worked!
(Carla) Pu and Peter came back from the farm and we soon began to smell the wonderful odor of roast lamb. They fixed us a splendid final supper of minted lamb and potatoes, gravy, vegetables and raw vegetable juice. We talked about biodynamic farming and Avalon, hopes and dreams and new marriages, and as night fell I knew I was going to be all right.
(Carla) What can I say about this day? I simply say that a miracle took place. Write it down. Our wind-written armor of light held. The loyal opposition slunk away thrashing its tail and grumbling in mumbles, all polarity gone. I offer praise to the one infinite Creator and Its incredible network of support, total love and guidance.
I went to bed full of the most profound gratitude and aware of infinite assistance. I salute Vara, Sir Dragonfly, who talked me through fear into fearlessness with great inspiration. Would I have got there on my own? Perhaps. Never so quickly, elegantly or gracefully.
Tuesday, June 28, 2005
(Carla) I woke early and much refreshed to find that my hands were stretched above my head as I roused and the fingers were naturally set together in a pyramid made of touching thumb to thumb and fingers to corresponding fingers. Clearly the magic had gone on working, with angelic aid, throughout the night. The pain crescendo had ceased. The head and neck were clear of pain. The nerve processes from spine outward were clear to about the elbow and knee levels. The pain was flowing through and out of the body exactly as requested.
I took a few minutes for prayers of gratitude and praise before I got up to begin my last day at Pu and Peter’s blessed house. With great tenderness and affection I fed the fish and the cats. I cleared away the last of the supper dishes and made the space on the first floor to know how much I had loved being there, thinking about sacred space and sacred work. There is great power in knowing the magic of love expressed in humble and usually undervalued movements such as washing glasses and wiping off drain boards!
When all was tidy and blessed to my best ability, I went upstairs for a final bath in their infinitely elegant tub, a splendid construction which allows one to rest one’s head and stretch out. What prayers I had this morning! Tears of joy streamed—or would have if I had tears; I have Sjogren’s syndrome, which allows one the feeling of tears but no liquid, a rheumatic oddness—as I rested in the crystalline water. It was palpably magnetized with love from all the guidance I had received, and lying in the hot water I dedicated myself anew to service to my Creator. The dedication was complete and I could feel the resonance of the moment. “Lord, my life is yours. I am your instrument and my purpose is to be the agent of Your unconditional Love. Lord, use me. Holly, help me to know the way of each moment.” I knew this was the lynchpin of the rest of this incarnation and my whole being sang with joy. This trip, I reflected, was about far more than a wedding or even sharing energy with people here in these appearances. I have been transformed. I have grown.
(Carla) Packing away my bath gear, I asked Vara for her help in using the Tiger Balm and massage in re-drawing the pathways of exit for the information of the pain and trauma still held in the body, which she was glad to do. Pu and Peter joined us, after she finished the treatment and I was dressed, for a celebratory breakfast and one last good conversation. Then Peter was off to work and Pu collected Vara, me and all our gear for the ride to Heathrow. Except for overshooting the airport and having to come back for a second try at the approach to that mighty and sprawling structure, we managed well, coming through the paperwork in good time and boarding our huge airplane to New York.
(Carla) It was again a trammeled flight for me. The steward first spilled a full glass of wine on my lap while trying to adjust my headphones, at which job he failed as well. Fortunately, the blanket on my lap absorbed the wine, leaving my clothing dry. His second gift was of water: he gave me some to take my lunch pills and poured a substantial amount down my sleeve while handing it to me, getting me soaked clear to the underarm. It is possible he is in the wrong profession. In the end I dried nicely. After reading a book I journaled, enjoying a far better seat situation than on the flight over. I was relatively comfortable! We landed in sudden evening, hot and breezy, and enjoyed a fairly easy ride to our motel, the Eden Park, with its famous tree. A light supper, another round of hot baths and a Tiger Balm massage for me and we were off to bed.
Wednesday, June 29, 2005
(Carla) It was a wakeful, short night at the Eden Park Hotel for both Vee and me. I doubt I did more than doze for the four hours I was in bed. Queens vibrated outside, roaring all night with freeway traffic and our room air conditioner, which labored well but noisily, a much-appreciated little ice-dragon. My stomach had taken an abrupt downturn and the right side of my body was singing with nerve pain, which was my own bad judgment, as I had wrestled Traveler back into its case rather than asking for help as we were preparing to land in New York. I had re-aggravated the damage from the kerb incident.
Nota Bene: Remember to ask for help! Part of this journey’s learning for me is this simple thing: ask for help! I have worked with Vee unceasingly on this trip to learn this lesson, as we have gone forth together for L/L Research in this crusade, tilting at our windmills with the greatest love and talking about a new “Imagineering” vision of the world. Whatever I have learned, it was not enough for me to clear this test: I did NOT ask for help. Now I had the fallout of this mistake with which to deal.
(Carla) Sir Dragonfly and I flew through the traffic that had been so slow yesterday and we arrived at LaGuardia Airport around 6:00 AM. Our flight eventually left the muggy skies around 9:30 AM, quite late, due to U S Airway’s computer foul-up somewhere on the east coast. Every bit of paperwork had to be done by hand.
(Carla) The flight into Louisville was terrific once it got going. I had a good seat and a good book. I even copped a crossword puzzle from a near-by seatmate after he was through reading the section of which it was a part.
(Carla) Seeing Mick again was such a kick! My baby! My guy! Hot dog! With the mountain of luggage safely stowed, including the baggage handlers’ latest victim, Vara’s big bag, which now is ripped too badly to repair, we headed home. It was wonderful to greet the Magic Kingdom! We sat down together for a welcome-home lunch, although I was too ill to eat anything, and started realizing we were home at last.
Jim headed out for his afternoon’s gardening work and I reflected at the blessing of just resting my head against Jim’s chest in the elevator at the airport, going out to the airport garage on the way home. What a blessing touch is! Just that physical touch of Jim’s sturdy, familiar chest, feeling the contact with my life mate, felt like heaven. Man and Woman, God and Goddess, the linking of life-mates, said far more than any words. I thought what a privilege it was to be in this sacred, lifetime relationship. I grinned to myself like the fool I am, having leaped into the abyss and come home again safely at last!
Jim went upstairs after lunch and retrieved my blanket, book stand and book, my doll and my roll pillow from Vara’s unpacking and I vowed to stay in one place all afternoon and, hopefully, get over the increasingly dire discomfort that had hit me. The cats hovered around me. Abigail, our oldster, looked quite ill and when I patted her, though she shoved her little head into my hand in the dear old way she has, she could not work up a purr. I sensed that she had been holding on until I got home to say good-bye. All afternoon I made notes on things to do once I get to feeling better, slept, and woke again to make more notes. I wrote up this entry on notepaper, since I did not have Traveller open. I have plenty of puzzles to work now! Jim saved every one for me. Life is good! Thanks be to God!
I gaze about me at the homely details of my own room, my own chair, and my own window with its changing view. I do not see as many day lilies as I expected. Mick reports that we are feeding a deer and her fawn with them, as are our neighbors. How sacred it feels to look at our altar, on which Jim just placed a new, blue hydrangea blossom, at the house plants hung around our airy bowered living room, with its eight 3 foot x 6 foot windows and all our homely things. Seemingly matter-of-fact and humble, to me they shine with love and joy.
I begin to look ahead. There is much to do: contacts to follow up from the trip, appointments to make with those who wish channeling and counseling sessions, and most of all the preparations for the Ranger Gathering talks to make. I look forward to it all! But for right now, I find myself much in need of rest! Tomorrow is another day! For now I am ready to go upstairs and lie down at lat in my own bed!
Before I meet with Vara on the morrow for a planning session, though, let me review! Looking back on this trip and all it has brought, I remember with especial affection and laughter:
- What does a fribble look like?
- Nimlet
- Hoo Hoo Sphincter Tight …
- Thunder Thighs
- Neep-Neep!
- “Scuse us, crazy Americans—coming through!
- Now my nightmare is complete!
- The angels of Purpose and Understanding
- All four Archangels doubled over laughing at us in Bath
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