Her name was Lola, she was a show-girl....

I know NOTHING about cars, but I know do they have personalities. All of them have a story and a few eccentricities. And every car I have ever owned had a name:

There was Geloppi (my blue Citi golf from my student days), then there was Polla (my blue VW Jetta) who saw me through many a trip across South Africa. Then came Amy, a gorgeous new Mercedes who stole my heart and kept it till I reluctantly let her go to make space for....well, Lola :)

Lola turned 5 this year (but does not look it!) and has less than 40,000 km on her clock. What can I say...she prefers things quick and dirty and enjoys the going topless! I do not really care what I drive and I really do not know why I buy a car? I guess it is a bit like choosing a puppy - they pick me. But whilst I have yet to read her manual and JC is the only one who received speeding tickets behind her wheel, I love the fact that Lola and I are traveling together. She gives my journey a bit of pizzazz :)

My soul places...

I believe, like Pythagoras, that everything is intelligent in its own way. I believe in nature as a "soul place" whose absence from our lives, are a direct cause of some of our "homesickness". I am a spiritual seeker, a systems thinker and a romantic. I am comfortable to stretch scientific horizons to discover what lies beneath the reflective surface of my own reality. 

Wildernis

Have we forgotten
that wilderness is not a place,
but a pattern of soul
where every tree, every bird and beast
is a soul maker?

Have we forgotten
that wilderness is not a place
but a moving feast of stars,
footprints, scales and beginnings?
Since when
did we become afraid of the night
and that only the bright stars count?
Or that our moon is not a moon
unless it is full?

By whose command
were the animals
through groping fingers,
one for each hand,
reduced to the big and little five?

Have we forgotten
that every creature is within us
carried by tides
of Earthly blood
and that we named them?

Have we forgotten
that wilderness is not a place,
but a season
and that we are in its
final hour?

Ian Mccallum

We are one....?!

My friend send me this quote from Yogi Bhajan:

"If you are willing to look at another person's behavior toward you as a reflection 

of the state of their relationship with themselves, rather than their relationship 

with you, then you will, over time, cease to react at all."

I take some time most mornings (with a cup of coffee!) to sort myself out for the day. A while back at a workshop, the facilitator took us through a visualisation she called: "I am all I see". It was amazing! She took us from the poorest circumstances to the most opulent you can imagine and all you had to do was to create the picture and put yourself in it. The most amazing thing is I knew exactly which place I fulfilled and how it felt to be super privileged and absolutely down and out.

My theory? Well I believe I have a grip on some reality! I am well traveled, hold 2 honors and one masters degree and I lecture at 2 very prestigious Cape Town Business Schools. OK, I have also been known to believe that I do not have to shrink creation to a size which by which I can make sense of it - in other words I am a believer :)  

So back to the meditation: Either I have really been there before (past life's and all that) or I am able to project what other people feel (an empath) or...we really are all one! Oh, and that opens up a few other boxes: 

Just imagine - if someone is suffering then it is actually a part of you that is going through it. If someone is angry, resentful, critical and you feel yourself reacting to it, it is because you recognise that part of you and you are reacting to it rather than the person. And so I can go on. 

If you cannot resist to react, it says a lot about your relationship with yourself and the emotions you own rather than the person. So next time someone presses my buttons and I feel like it unleashed an avalanche in me, I will breathe, think about why I feel this way, honor what I am feeling but then let it go, as it does not serve me anymore.... and not forget to thank this person for being my teacher. 
And remember that by working on being OK, I am making us all better?! Ooui...!

"I am the keeper of the zoo: I say yes and no:

I sing and kill and work…"

Carl Sandburg

Growing...slowly!

I harbour "guilt" like a woollen coat. And I wear it well!

When I left corporate a couple of years ago to start consulting, I used to get up and dress like I was going to the office - even if I only had some design work to do at home. It really took me a year to realise that I was actually more effective in my pyjamas and that being at home does not mean I'm not working.

It used to be do, do, do all the time at work and I hardly took time to think. I now realise what a privilege it is to be able to take some time every day to think...or just to be quiet.
I now realise how blessed I am to have a choice every day on how I want to spend my time on earth.

‘Remind me each day that the race is not always to the swift,

That there is more to life than increasing its speed.

Let me look upward into the towering oak and know that it grew great and strong

Because it grew slowly and well.’

My agreement with myself...

Over the last couple of years I have had the time to explore many word and thoughts of great teachers and philosophers. It becomes quite confusing to try and take all the viewpoints and "truths" into my own heart, which does come with certain...boundaries.

I really do not want to become a skeptic, a person who shrinks everything that is magical and rejects those concepts which require faith, into something small enough for me to grasp. Surely all that I know and have experienced is not all there is?! Just imagine before we had microscopes, x-rays and telescopes, we believed only what we could see...and this is a few hundred years ago. In a world which is estimated (scientifically!) to be around 4.5 billion years old - we definitely do not have an inkling of how great this creation is!

This is where I am now, as this is what I have learned and have experienced first-hand - The moment someone has a problem with:
- Change
- Loss of control
- Boundaries
...there is a trust-issue with oneself. As if we need to control the world around us, because what is going on inside our hearts and minds is not clear or accepted. When we do not know and therefor do not trust ourselves, how can we deal with an ever changing world around us?

A way to become less confused and stuck and fearful, is to sort out an agreement with yourself. This agreement is about honouring yourself in a world without boundaries. It means always having your "self" and not loosing your way. I also learned that surrendering means that I surrender to the knowledge that I do not have control over other people or events, but I will not surrender my agreement with myself. This would be harmful to me and I would betray the most sacred of contracts - the one with myself.

My contract is personal but it deals with issues like how I will try and always speak the truth, the kindness I extend to others, the way I do not take everything personal or assume things, how I will not lend my ears to people who spread fear or hate with words, how I will be forgiving to myself and others but disciplined with what I eat and taking quiet time each day. It does not matter what you cover, as long as you have something that you hold on to, which represents that man or woman that you want to see in the mirror each day.

So having written that down and reading it every day, I am surrendering to magic and faith and the unexplained! I am OK with things not always going my way - I just try my best every day. And in the meantime, just in case we are visited from beyond, I diligently practice my Vulcan-salute: "Live long and prosper"!