Category: Curiosities

ABUNDANCE

05.10.2024

2024, Curiosities

Every now and then we come into a time of abundance. We have tendency to think of abundance as being something really good – winning the Lotto or some previously unknown uncle leaving you a pile of dosh. I have had such a win today. Actually I have had two such wins today, both of which are super welcome in my life and I am so very grateful.

Earlier this year our Australian Government, in an attempt to offset the current really high cost of living, agreed that on 1^st July, 2024 every single person with an electricity account would receive $1,000 credit on that account. For me, that was the day that I was moving house.

A few days earlier I had arranged to close down the account at my old place and start a new account at my new home. All good so far. When I moved in, the electricity company realised that they hadn’t checked and certified the hot water system and the air conditioning as safe. This is a requirement when new wiring is done for certain heavy-use appliances. In my new house, my electricity to these items was turned off. The electricity company promised to do the job in a couple of days and they told me that as soon as everything was certified as OK, I was to call the electricity company and arrange for billing to start.

Except, one of the joys of living in rural Australia, is that they didn’t come for nearly a month and when I tried to phone the electricity company on the day everything was certified, I was told by one of those annoyingly jovial recorded voices that the approximate wait time to talk with a consultant is….   ……   …..   96 minutes. I decided to hang up and go online instead.

At this point it was a month after opening my new account, and when I went on line I couldn’t find where I could re-instate it, so I just closed that one and opened a new account. The first bill arrived a few days later for 2 days power – and no $1,000 credit, AND my normal aged pensioner credit wasn’t listed either. I decided to wait for the next bill. Maybe it took time to sort these things out at their end.

The new bill came in this morning. Still no credit. Now, I really should let you know that as part of my autism I HATE phone calls. I just can’t process all the information fast enough and I very rapidly go into overwhelm which means embarrassing tears, so picking up the phone and calling the electricity company with the potential of a big fight was, to say the least, a tad tense.

And here is where the abundance came in – I only had to hold for a couple of minutes and a lady answered who was actually in my nearest city and not in Mumbai. She had an Aussie accent!!!   YAY!   I explained all the complicated goings on, she checked all the different accounts and then had a chat with her boss. When she came back she asked if I have a signed rental agreement dated on or before 1^st July – You bet I do!!! I sent that off to her and within 10 minutes it was all sorted out! I burst into tears anyway.

All that stress had to go somewhere!! LOL.

I had just sat down with a cup of coffee to unwind for a few minutes when a male voice yelled through my door. I just about jumped out of my skin. It was a friend’s husband. He’d been fishing and gave me two big fillets of reef fish!!! Wow!!!   More abundance. There’s enough there for 5-6 meals!! You just can’t beat freshly caught fish from the Great Barrier Reef!!!

Actually, thinking about it, there is third abundancy today…   this one is more about what didn’t happen than what has happened. The cottage I live in was, a year or so ago, derelict, and the owner has been working to rebuild it. Apart from a few smallish things the indoor work is complete and this week the plan is to start on the carport at the back. At the moment there is an old, old, old, concrete slab that has quite an angle on it so that any flood water will go right under the house. This is a town that is well known for being in the path of cyclones, and my house is in the potential flood zone, so that is definitely not a good thing. The plan is that this week he will hit that dodgy concrete with a jack-hammer. And I was expecting that to start today.

But – more abundance of a different kind: he didn’t come to work today.

Can you just imagine how stressed I would have been trying to sort out the electricity with a jack-hammer just outside the back door!!

It truly is a glorious day today.

And now I invite you to review your day, to look at the everyday happenings that are signs that you are living and receiving abundance. Receiving abundance is another way of saying that you got more than you expected. It doesn’t mean that riches are coming your way although that is something which is often mistaken in the New Age Spiritual belief system. It might just be the priceless joy of a child’s laughter, or that there is heaps of hot water for your shower.   Or that the sun is shining.

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KEEPER OF MEMORIES

28.09.2024

2024, Curiosities

After a life journey of many ups and downs, not a lot remains in the form of mementos. I am still in the process after moving house, of finding the ‘right’ place to keep such things and today, as I decided to move some things around to a better storage place, I came across a small box that I’ve not opened in a very long time. This box contains small mementos and photos that are precious to me. My life history all wrapped up in less than a dozen items. In this box of memories are two hand-written journals I wrote from when my first husband passed away. He had died from brain cancer at a very young age and I had learned to cope with the trauma by writing everything that hurt. It was, in many ways, the start of my journaling and it is what kept me reasonably sane at the time.

Those journals became my connection to the reality of widowhood. In fact, they became the only means I had for close on two decades to remember what date he had died and what date was the funeral.

With SDAM (severely deficient autobiographical memory), I am lucky if I remember my own birthday without reminders everywhere. As these dates represented something I didn’t want to remember and, after the first couple of years, there wasn’t anything to remind me on a day-to-day basis, it was easy to let them slip.

Since then I have discovered the benefits of journalling. I no longer hand-write – that is way too slow for me – I’m an old-fashioned, 1960’s trained, touch typist. My fingers can keep up with my thoughts in a way that pen and paper cannot hope to attain!

I have a template on my laptop in which I put the things that are important – and that can be anything from a medical appointment to putting the rubbish bins out for collection or lunch with a friend! If I don’t have these things staring back at me from the screen they too will be forgotten!

With SDAM it is so important to have reminders about your life.

So what goes into the journal? Just about everything. What time I got up, how well – or badly – I slept, my weight, my meditation practice, what exercise I am to do (or have done). I note conversations with friends, contemplation of whatever I am reading. I copy and paste interesting Facebook and You Tube posts in there, even copies of these blogs! In short, there is no limit. If it is something I find interesting now – well, it might be interesting in ten years too!

Most of the time, as I start an entry for a new day, I am already starting to forget. Some people with SDAM can keep clear memories for several weeks or even months before they start to fade – for me I have noticed it is often only a matter of days, and when that is coupled with executive function issues with autism and ADHD, it’s almost vital that a diary/journal of some kind becomes a habit.

Right now, as I write this, I am stepping into a new daily routine. Some things have changed and I have to also change. I think that without my journal, I would probably be wondering what to do with the extra hours that have suddenly become available each day. With my journal I discover that there are heaps of things, projects, that I have been talking about re-starting and especially, deepening my interaction within the community.

Life is interesting and exciting.

I wonder what I will write about today?

What will you write about?

Thank you for reading my meanderings. Don’t forget to hit Like and add yourself to my e-mailing list so that you don’t miss an episode.

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THE THREADS THAT BIND US….

20.09.2024

2024, Curiosities

I recently watched a video where a researcher put a credit card into a glass of acetone. It only took about half an hour for all the plastic to melt away leaving that which had been buried within the card – a whole heap of very fine wire attached to a small computer chip. The chip by itself can not do the work to pay your bill – it needs the wire. The wire needs the card reader to provide energy to the chip so that the transaction can take place. And beyond that is a massive world-wide infrastructure to transport that information which eventually results in your credit card account showing that the transaction took place.

I think of my world as a massive tapestry. There are threads of all manner of texture: some threads are thick; some are very fine. Some are knotted up; some are silky smooth. There is every possible colour represented and it takes every single thread to make up this rich, woven tapestry of life on Earth. Every living thing has its own thread, not just humans but animals, birds, trees and grass, rocks, and mountains. Every ocean and every stream. Everything is connected by these threads to every other aspect of this tapestry. Just like the wire hidden in your credit card.

When something happens on the internet (as it did for me a few days ago) things can become difficult. For me, my internet all but disappeared for two days and that left me adrift, wondering what to do. Not quite a disaster, but close enough to trouble my day-to-day life. In my tapestry each thread is equally essential and if one of the threads becomes thin, worn out, broken or even just fades away through lack of attention or care, there is a thin spot in the tapestry. There may even be a hole. And that means that the energy cannot flow as well as it otherwise could. And, like my internet service, that can be troublesome.

Your credit card, or your connection to the internet is important to you. In fact, it’s probably more important – to you – than whatever your friends are experiencing with their internet. Your thread in the tapestry of life is also more important to you than the threads that represent your friends. But when an aspect of either system goes down, it doesn’t just affect that small element – the problems can ripple outwards. But if there is an alternate energy source that can be offered, problems can be reduced and even disappear, leaving the tapestry – or the network – intact.

Here’s a practical example: I’ve recently moved house. I’ve moved many times before and it’s never been a problem. I love moving house, it’s exciting and a way of highlighting a fresh start. But this time I am older. I live alone and I have some disabilities to deal with. My energy reserves were low and though I tried to put a good face onto it, I even thought about pulling my thread out of this tapestry all together. It was only thoughts, nothing I would act on, but it showed just how thin my miniscule part of the world tapestry was becoming. But there are people around me, people whose threads are in connection with mine – part of the warp and weft of my life. And they joined their threads with mine. They supported me so that I could re-build my thread, strengthen it with a few knots and brightly-coloured ribbons of the energy they gave to me. Each of these people also have a few thin bits in their threads – in fact every being has these thin bits in their life threads, but by supporting those around us – sharing energy through practical assistance, a few kind words, or even just sitting next to someone who is alone, we can keep this tapestry alive.

The credit card appeared to be trashed after soaking in the glass of acetone, but that was untrue. The network of energy supporting the wire and the chip still worked, and in the video the presenter was still able to pay for her coffee.

And I now live in my new home.

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STRAWBERRY DRESS

13.09.2024

2024, Curiosities

This thought has been sitting in my head all night, demanding to be written when all I really wanted to do was sleep.

The dress was the colour of strawberries before they are quite ripened. A pale dusky pink, fresh and clean. It has a ‘V’ shaped neckline, and a high waist, the kind we used to call ‘princess style’ and it swirled around my legs. It was Heavenly.

And that is the crux. The thing that must be written regardless of my desire to sleep. It was a dress that was suitable to wear in Heaven.

Except I don’t really believe in heaven – or hell. At least, not in a religious sense. It seems to me that when people talk of going to heaven, they seem to expect to be there in the bodies they wore during their lifetime and wearing their own clothes – which is why the dress is ‘heavenly.’ And that is where my very literal mind starts to fall over because, don’t we leave our bodies behind at death and move forward? Why would we ever think about what we’d be wearing in our afterlife? And the Big Question…. do we even have an afterlife? Yes. I know. Weird questions to be asking yourself at one o’clock in the morning!

It was one of those topics that jumps out of the aethers just as you are about to fall asleep and then plagues you all night. It was made especially annoying for me because I mainly think by typing and my laptop was in another room. My mind was trying to tell me something and I couldn’t quite grasp what that ‘something’ was other than ‘strawberries’ and ‘heaven.’

It’s been a while since I’ve had such questions – the ones that seem as if someone else, outside of ‘you’ is asking – but at one time they were a regular occurrence and I know how to put them at rest, at least until morning: I recorded the question on my phone. Now that I knew I could pick up the thread if I was meant to, I fell asleep. But even then I was still aware of the question, so I know that there is something about this which is important to explore.

Would the thought that we even have bodies after death imply a form of consciousness? And if we carry forward our consciousness, our awareness… well our inhibitions would require that body to be clothed – hence, the strawberry-coloured dress!

Really though, it does make sense. We know, through science, that thoughts create matter. If our consciousness after death is able to think – then matter is able to be formed. We also know that when we are born into this current lifetime, we forget the knowledge we held before that birth, although some of us do come to be aware of, and to understand, some of that knowledge during our lifetime here, why would our freed consciousness not remember?

So many questions! I have a feeling that this strawberry-coloured dress which came to me in that time between wakefulness and sleep, has the potential to take me on a vast journey of discovery – if I don’t get distracted by the fact that my stomach is rumbling and demanding breakfast!

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A PAIR OF GLOVES

06.09.2024

2024, Curiosities

I am a real wimp when it comes to being cold. I don’t like it one little bit – and I grew up in the North of England where it’s freezing for nine months of the year, tolerable for two months of the year and the final month is made up of scattered days that get over 20C.

I’ve lived in Australia for over thirty years, six of those in the wet tropics of Northern Queensland where it’s close enough to the equator to believe it impossible to have cold weather – but it’s really all a matter of perspective and I’ve been freezing my socks off. The other day, the temperature got down to an all-time-low for my part of the world, just 9C. The last time it got that cold was in 1960. It was only at that temperature for a couple of hours first thing in the morning, but when your average winter temperature is in the mid to upper 20’s that was a shock to the system. Winter had arrived!

Winter is our main tourist season. What we consider to be freezing is in fact welcome warmth from those folk who live a lot further south and there is a constant stream of caravans driving through our town. You can usually tell locals from the tourists – the tourist are dressed for summer! Me? Well… I am definitely acclimatised to living here.

Traditionally, our houses are built to capture every single breeze. They are raised off the ground so that the air can flow underneath and the older houses may have insulation under the tin roof nowadays, but the walls are thin and the ‘ventilation’ holes are many. I can sit on my toilet and look down through pin-prick holes in the floorboards and there is a gap under the back door. Capturing every breeze is fantastic – until it’s not! And our very short-lived winter is one of those times.

I’d just moved into my cottage. It was built over 70 years ago – which is pretty old in this area. I love it. It’s quirky and not perfectly square, a bit wobbly… and it is an absolute ice box in the mornings! For the last week I have been FREEZING!

I’m dressed in many, many layers of clothes. The socks and the Ugg-boots came out of hibernation, and the shorts and frocks went into temporary retirement. There was a singlet, and t-shirt, of top of that there is a hoodie with the hood up, and it all is topped by a blanket wrapped around me because I don’t actually own a coat. You’d think I was part of an expedition to the South Pole!

But I had no gloves. My fingers were freezing as I typed on my keyboard. I had to do something about that and as we don’t have any shops that would sell gloves other than for working outside or safety, I hopped over to Amazon and bought a wonderful pair of silky, fur-lined, fingerless (because I still need to type) gloves.

They arrived a few days later but it was too late. Our very short-lived winter had gone. At least I am now prepared for that one week of each year for the rest of my life that can get a bit chilly! As long as I don’t forget where I put these gloves!!!

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The Act of Telling

31.08.2024

2024, Curiosities

Over the past couple of years I have been doing a deep dive into understanding many of the things that I found to be traumatic and painful in my life. A lot of it was centred around my mother and she, very firmly got the blame for almost all my woes in life. It’s a generational thing. She did the same thing with her mother and my daughter has done the same thing to me.

What I have discovered with my delving into Who I Am Without My Wounds, is an understanding that is both deep and profound. I have come to understand my mother’s wounds and also the things that she, so silently, battled with. I have come to understand these things because I too have fought those same battles as, I believe, has my daughter.

The understanding started when I was diagnosed as autistic along with several other neuro-divergent traits. I started to recognise these traits within myself and I was faced with a choice. Do I continue to hide these things, to deny them, or do I face them and acknowledge that my brain works in a different way to most other people. I chose the latter path.

That was probably not the easiest path to choose and it has involved my learning to let go of the high-functioning mask that I have shown to the world for my entire life. It has involved giving myself permission to stim, learning that fear is the only emotion I fully understand and can recognise. It is accepting that I am incredibly literal in my thoughts and speech and that sometimes that can result in my saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. It can also make me very compliant when dominated. I’ll do anything if it means that I won’t have the focus on me, that I won’t have to carry guilt even when I have nothing to feel guilty about.

What I have come to understand is that all the mental health issues that I have faced, my mother also faced. In her time, such things were unknown and women were frequently overpowered and belittled by the men in their lives. My mother was powerless. Her mother had cruelly dominated her, and she didn’t have the knowledge of how to find her own strength and hold her own. When I was born, I became her victim just as much as she had been the victim of her life. My extreme compliancy, her domination and my autistic tendencies resulted in me being ‘programmed’ to always tell her – or someone else – every single thing that I do. Literally.

And this training still holds tight to me even though she has passed and I am now 69 years old.

This is the final stranglehold I have on myself. The Act of Telling now shows in just two main arenas. One is on social media and the other is talking to my spiritual teacher and friend Essence Ka tha’ras. On social media I find myself writing responses to questions posed that I I really have no connection with. It is the well-programmed urge to explain everything that my mother had demanded of me. This one is easier to manage now. I allow myself to write those responses every now and then, and then I delete instead of posting. This blog is also an aspect of this Act of Telling that is so strong in me. Essence has listened to me over-explaining and over-sharing for almost a decade and I know I have tested her patience, for which I am very grateful. She has definitely helped me immensely over the past years, but as she is known to sometimes state that she needs to learn more patience, maybe there is a reason I am in her life too!

There is a third method regarding my programming in the Act of Telling. I journal. This is where I can without any guilt, really vomit out everything that my childhood programming urges me to share. I am Telling, but only I am listening.

This intense need to explain myself in the Act of Telling is, I believe, one of the final aspects of my finding peace within myself. I have come to understand the how and the why of the dominance my mother held over me. I have come to understand the struggles she had and the mental anguish she carried as an undiagnosed autistic woman of her era, dominated by the men in her life and by her mother.

I have come to understand through my own journey that programming in childhood can lead to immense difficulties in adulthood. It can be so very hard to break such programming and for me the journey started with gaining understanding of why I was programmed in such a way. When understanding can be found, my next stage was to accept that my mother acted out of the programming that she received and from which she had never found her way out. With acceptance, forgiveness is finally possible and it is only in forgiveness – that is, not only in me forgiving my mother, but in me forgiving myself for the actions and thoughts I held about my mother, that it is possible to move forward towards Inner Peace.

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Hill’s Hoist

24.08.2024

2024, Curiosities

Somewhere around the late 1940’s and early 1950’s, most likely when this house was built, a Hills Hoist clothes line was embedded into concrete in the back garden of the cottage I now call home. A Hill’s Hoist is an Aussie icon – a rotary clothes line first invented in 1945 and now sold world-wide. I think this one still has all the original parts. Certainly it was well decorated with rotted wooden pegs still attached to a mould-covered wire clothes lines by lumps of rust that were once the peg springs.

I had made the suggestion to the owner of the house that I would be more than happy if the Hills Hoist could be knocked down and removed. I could put a plant pot on the concrete, but even if it was left in its unusable state I could convert it into an arbour for growing grapes and dragon fruit.

Today, amidst much swearing, the owner and a friend fixed the Hills Hoist. They left the green saggy wire and the rotted pegs, but they managed to fix the mechanical bit that allows the hoist to be … well… hoisted high, and they proudly called me out to the garden.

Now – I am very short; I don’t quite make 5ft. And I have two arms that don’t work too well, and there’s a plan for surgery on my shoulders sometime in my near future. How do I tell these two tall guys who managed to fix a 70 year-old clothes line, that I can’t reach it. I just couldn’t do that to them. Especially when the fixing had involved so many magical incantations – aka swear words. Words carry power and these ones, obviously, were very powerful – they got the damn thing working again!

Right now I am sitting at my computer trying to pluck up courage to go and bring my washing back in. It’s about to rain. I’d spent ages scrubbing the green gunk off the wire and smashing the welded-on pegs whilst doing my best to ignore my complaining shoulders, but that was just the start. I’d then I’d hung my laundry on the hoist – because, for some horribly synchronistic reason, I just happened to have a load in the washing machine ready to put to dry on my low, easy-reach, clothes airer – which would also be out of the rain.

I must admit that the clothes did dry a whole lot faster on the Hills Hoist than they would have on my small airer, but was it really worth it? And will I carry on using that Hills Hoist?

Not a friggin’ chance!!

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Dreaming

17.08.2024

2024, Curiosities

Recently, on social media, I saw a post about being asleep, in a lucid dream state, where you begin to wonder which aspect of self is dream and which is reality. I debated about sharing my experience with this; in many ways, it’s pretty far out there, but I decided to go ahead. And, if you choose to disbelieve it – at least it’s a good story!

For a period of about three years, I spent time working on a space station in high orbit over Earth. As Auri’An, in this reality, I was actually going to bed, falling asleep and then I would find myself walking to my work area on the station, where I would work at the terminal, operating what could almost be considered like a gaming gizmo (I’m not a gamer, I don’t know the actual terminology)! I was also aware within my dream of my physical hands replicating the movements in my sleep – and even, at times, within meditation. This would continue almost every night for several months and then there would be a break for a few months before the next ‘shift’ would start.

I’m a ‘Traveller’ or rather, I was. Even as a child I would ‘travel with the elephants,’ but I have not consciously travelled for the last two years. I have travelled through what I term as ‘my Stargates’ to many places, times and dimensions, and it was on one such journey that I first found myself on the Space Station. What I was doing was connecting with an Aspect of Self who was working there as a kind of overseer – a team leader. I led a team of people who were researching and gathering data on humans. I still find it amusing that the data that we were collecting when I first consciously realised that I was linking with an Aspect of Self, was about all the variables that there are in human noses. Long, short, stubby, hooked, narrow, wide, hairy, blackheads… any information to do with noses was being collected.

On 28^th September, 2019 things started to develop. A new Energy came into my field. In this earth-bound reality it was a person who was enquiring about my artwork. On the space station it was another team leader working on a different project. In this earth-bound reality we had work to do together and so, two people who never otherwise would have met – eventually found themselves planting the seed of Ein Teri Y’ah (pronounced: In Terry Eye Ya).

Ein Teri Y’ah (and some here may recall my Facebook Group by that name) was the task I had been given for this lifetime. At this point in time, here on Earth, it is yet but a dream. Ein Teri Y’ah means “This Sacred Land” and refers to a very specific part of this planet that holds a high frequency energy that is in alignment with similar points in our Galaxy. It is a nexus point not dissimilar to where Ley Lines come together on Earth.

The ’dream’ of the Aspect of Self who worked on the space station, and this Aspect of Self – me, Auri’An in this earth-bound reality, were deeply connected both asleep and awake. And which was which? Where did the dream start – or end?

Over the following year, as covid gained a foothold in our reality, the other team-leader and myself dreamed Ein Teri Y’ah into an unsolid reality. My role was that of Architect. My colleague’s role was that of Builder. But it it was eventually recognised that humans are not yet ready for Ein Teri Y’ah. The seed has been planted though, and at some point within the future of this planet, we will be ready for that seed to grow.

On 26^th August 2021, once it had been recognised that Ein Teri Y’ah would not become a reality at this point in time, I made a final journey to the space station. This time I didn’t just find myself at my work place, I found myself outside the space station watching as it prepared to depart. The Beings who manned the station came from many parts of this galaxy and their research into and recording of the many variables of our species – collected as a reference point should we get things very wrong and end up destroying ourselves – had been finalised. It was time for them to go home.

The picture attached is a sketch of that final visit to the space station and how it appeared from outside. What I saw was two sections, connected by a kind of umbilicus. Each section telescoped in on itself and then the whole just blipped out of being.

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Make-up

10.08.2024

2024, Curiosities

In today’s world, I look at the young people with their oh-so-technical make-up: contouring, highlighting, and whatever else, and I think back to my youth where we’d put on a ‘bit of slap’ – that is, some powder, eyeliner, mascara, and lipstick – and I wonder how today’s young peoples’ skin actually manages to breathe through the weight of layers of make-up. I also, in my perverse times, sometimes wonder what goes through a guy’s mind when he get to see what the person looks like without all that artistry. It’s definitely hugely impressive art.

I’ve never worn much make-up, and that might be the reason that at 69 years old I don’t have many wrinkles, just a few lines around my mouth. I also don’t use any of the expensive and oh so complicated skin care routines that appear to be normal for many women if TV advertising is to be believed, just a bit of soap and water once every few days and in between I cleanse with oil. Almond oil, MCT oil, caster oil…. Doesn’t really matter. And that’s it. My full skin care routine!

Until today. A friend shares a birthday with me and we decided to go out to dinner and we decided to go the whole hog and dress-up and wear make-up. She’s like me, wearing make-up is a rarity.

I had to dig deep into the bathroom cupboard to find my make-up. The last time I wore it was performing belly dance, and I gave that up about four years ago, and the make-up was pretty ancient even then!

Ignoring the advice that all make-up that is older than 6 months could be teeming with bacteria, I set too and I dug out the foundation. Obviously when I bought this I had a deeper tan. Never mind…. I squirted some of the gunk onto my fingers. I remember that it was, originally creamy; this was like water, with a few lumps. The water aspect ran through my fingers and the lumps clanged into the sink. I found a brush which, as it had been sat in a cupboard for several years was also of debatable cleanliness, and squirted some of this runny liquid onto the brush, picked off the lumps and dabbed it onto my nose. It didn’t look too bad so, trying not to worry that I might end up with a face filled with big red boils, I smooshed the soggy brush all over my face and neck. I obviously screwed up my eyes because when I looked in the mirror there were big, white panda rings under my eyes.

I found some powder and another potentially unclean brush and tried to colour in the white rings. I’d convinced myself by now that boils were an inevitable outcome of this potentially bacteria-laden make-up, and sometimes vanity has to take a risk, but boils under the eyes was not a preferred option. The powder felt cleaner, so I extended it all over. Oh shit! Now I look orange. I found another powder that told me it was for for ‘blurring.’ I definitely needed something to be blurry so that went on too.

Next my favourite eyeshadow. I used to wear an orange belly dance costume, so the orange eyeshadow was added to the already orange face. A dry washcloth was next to try to minimise the day-glo look I was achieving. It did look better, so praying for dim lighting at the restaurant I decided to continue.

Eyeliner. I got half-way across one eye and realised that this was not going to work. So I did half the other eye to bring balance and gave the whole lot a good rub to blend it in.

Mascara. It took me a few good tugs to get the wand out of the bottle. It was set like concrete. I added caster oil to the bottle and gave it a good shake. Didn’t make any difference at all and I told myself that as I didn’t intend to batter my eyelids at anyone I’d get away without mascara.

Now, any belly dancer without super-bright red lipstick just shouldn’t be up on stage, and so my lipstick choice was red. Bright red. Day-glo red. Blood red… and a wishy-washy beige colour I must have bought by mistake. That’s what went on.

Feeling like a million dollars, I got dressed and my friend and I went out for dinner. We sat in the restaurant and admired the amazing view over the Coral Sea, we drank a cocktail, ate a superb meal and we put life to rights. We even got our meals for free – the restaurant had a wonderful promotion – free main course if it is your birthday.

Now, at 7.30pm – yeah…we are not big on late nights, my friend and I, I’m back home, in my PJs and about to go scrape all this shit off my face and check that there are no boils waiting to erupt. We had such a great time we decided that we’d do it again on a monthly basis.

But first, I need to go buy some new bacteria-free, non orange, make-up!

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The Value of W

03.08.2024

2024, Curiosities

There has always been a hole in my life. Actually there have been several holes but they all kind-of blend together into what has, at times, been called my ‘Black Hole to Nowhere,’ but also my ‘Deep Dark Well of Despair.’

I first named the Black Hole when I was in my early 20’s when someone showed me a newspaper cutting about a stage show I had produced to raise funds to buy a fully-equipped ambulance. Now, if you think about it, you don’t put on a stage show with 10 minutes preparation – it takes months of rehearsals, planning, staging, etc. – and I had absolutely no recollection of any of this. Nothing. There have been many black holes since then, although nothing quite so dramatic. I finally was able to come to understand more a couple of years ago, when I realised I have SDAM – Severely Deficient Autobiographical Memory.

SDAM is a congenital mis-wiring in the brain where, basically, people cannot pull-back memories of their own self. Couple this with multi-sensory aphantasia and you have a perfect recipe for black holes in the memory.

What happened with me is that, from childhood, I made stories about events, and those stories were almost always about the hard stuff. I re-told the stories over and over again. I have no memories of the actual events, just those repeating stories, and I worried that if I let go of the stories into the black hole, what would be left? If I had no memory of I, would I just disappear?

A couple of years ago I did start the journey to releasing those stories. It started with learning about all the many neuro-divergent differences that form who I am, how I think and why I act as I do. I found out why I go into melt-down and why I have been known to even get violent in large, noisy crowds. I learned to accept the black hole. But there was more I needed to understand.

About a year ago things in my world started to rock again. My friendship with my ex-husband became strained and I depended on him a lot for support as I live with chronic pain. He eventually moved out of our shared house, leaving me with the full rent to pay, without access to a vehicle and living in a rural town, with no public transport. Even collecting my mail became a nightmare. The Black Hole of Despair beckoned.

My spiritual practices started to slip. Meditation went out the window and I even gave up on my 1000 days of reading the Tao Te Ching. Life became one of survival. And survive I did. I did more than survive, I learned, probably for the first time in my life, how to be independent. And I discovered that there are safety nets in this world.

I’m an Aged Pensioner and I am without family – and I discovered that there are government schemes to provide help where needed. I took advantage of those schemes and found that my worries could be solved. I discovered people around me who are those very rare gems in this world – friends who will actually put themselves out to be of assistance. I acknowledged my needs and discovered my town is filled with people who will help.

Lao Tzu, in the Tao Te Ching, talks about ‘flowing like water.’ In more modern parlance we might talk about ‘going with the flow’ when things are uncertain. I did that. I learned not to panic when difficulties came, to simply accept them as part of the journey. I learned to see beauty in the derelict building, in the over-grown garden, in the muddy pond. I learned to accept my pain and I learned how to let go of the stories. I learned how to unlearn the lessons of my younger years and instead of disappearing as I had feared, I found myself building stronger foundations.

Yesterday, my Teacher asked me how I was going with my Spiritual studies – what had I learned through this time of turmoil?

I have learned the value of the letter “W.”

I have learned that there may have been black holes in my life, but by doing the right work on self, with learning and unlearning, with flowing like water….

I made myself Whole.

One who seeks knowledge learns something new every day.

One who seeks the Tao unlearns something new every day.

Less and less remains until you arrive at non-action.

When you arrive at non-action, nothing will be left undone.

Tao Te Ching. Chapter 48. Translation by John H. McDonald

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