More About Tuesday’s Tale

http://www.gofundme.com/c6erv4

As promised a few weeks back, here is an update on the story of T – the little ballet star I work with whose father has untreatable cancer.

You can find my original post here.

Firstly, I want to send a huge, massive, heartfelt THANK YOU to all the kind and caring people who donated to my original appeal for help for Tuesday and her family.  As you will see, if you go to the ‘Go Fund Me’ site, your donations have already made a massive impact and T’s Mum and Dad would like me to pass on their gratitude and wonder that people who have never met them can be so kind.

If – understandably! – you felt uncomfortable sending a donation via my PayPal account, you’ll be pleased to know that there is now a proper funding site set up.  You’ll find details, and T’s own version of her story here.

I’m very much aware that being asked for money dredges up all kinds of resistance in all of us.

#482185265 / gettyimages.com

I can’t speak for others, but the kind of thoughts that go through my mind are:

“Hey, I’m on a really limited income.  Is it reasonable to expect me to give some of my money to someone I don’t even know?”

or “The world is full of deserving cases.  Why should I give to this one?  How on earth do I choose?”

or “I can only afford to give £x (or even x pence) and people will think I’m really mean if I only give that much.”

When we’re made to feel uncomfortable by thoughts like that, the easiest way out is to put the whole thing aside and move on.

I’m not great at this fundraising lark, but these are people I know and care about, so I’d love to see them fulfil their dream, whatever adventures and wonders this new phase of their life will bring them.

If it helps, you can donate via Go Fund Me keeping your identity anonymous if you wish, so if you only feel comfortable giving 50 pence or 50 cents, that’s just fine.  All the money and the energy of kind, caring people will build up and help this family to move forwards.

Thanks again to everyone who has already donated, shared the link and sent healing energy to T’s family.

Breakdowns and subtle bodies



I'll begin by telling you that this is to be one of my 'alternative communication' posts.  Haven't done one for quite a while, so if you tuned in wanting another feel-good story about LIME Cottage, sorry but this is drawing on a very different aspect of my life.


For those who aren’t familiar with my form of alternative communication, I should point out that it is very, er, alternative.

I’ve come across many people who channel and many who speak to those beyond the veil.  I’ve done both, but what I do now is something else again.  I have telepathic conversations with a young man I’ve known since he was a little boy.  He taught me to send and receive telepathically when he was about 8.  He went on to teach me wonders that astounded me.

Sometimes.

At other times he was withdrawn, grumpy, monosyllabic and would insist that the revelations and connections to higher realms had never happened.  It always confused me.

In his late teens, after some very difficult life experiences, he shut down completely.  He barely left his home or spoke to anyone, he only corresponded with me via text – a word a week was normal (‘How are you doing?’/ ‘Fine’).  He cut himself off from family and had no friends.  He developed compulsions and became paranoid.  He refused to see a doctor or therapist and so on and on.  They were dark days.

And then, quite out of the blue, he began to correspond with me telepathically.  It certainly ‘felt’ like him.  I would sit at my computer, type questions or comments into a word-processing program and then hold my crystal dowsing pendulum over the keyboard, just as I’d done (and demonstrated to him many times) when I used to contact his mother in spirit.  The crystal moved and spelled out words, which I typed.

This was different, though.  For a start, he wasn’t dead.  I’d be receiving one word texts from the physical him in London and expansive, fascinating insights from the telepathic him.  Strangest of all, he (in the body) appeared to have no knowledge of the conversations he was having with me via my computer.

Fairly obviously, I doubted the validity of what was happening and more-or-less convinced myself that I was making the whole thing up.  That was when I contacted Cynthia and Bob in New York.  They, I knew, were the real deal.  Cynthia channelled The Council while Bob made detailed recordings.  Yes, they assured me, it was all happening, and I needed to write it all down – publish a book of our strange and wonderful friendship.

The communications have continued intermittently ever since.  It wasn’t until early this month that I commented that the different aspects of him seemed to be more separate than most people’s.

YES, he responded. OVERLOADED.   A BREAKDOWN IN MY TEENS.

I gasped.  ‘Is that what a breakdown is?  A separation of the subtle bodies?’

His response registered mild surprise that I hadn’t realised that.

Suddenly everything made sense – the way in which the magical, evolved indigo/Version 2.0 boy had vanished and been replaced by a terrified, hyper-alert young man working entirely from the limbic system – the ancient fight-or-flight mechanism at the very centre of the brain.
I recalled his angry replies when I asked how he was feeling: ‘I don’t HAVE feelings!’
He managed tasks that had a direct bearing on his own survival, but nothing else.
His life was encased in rituals and obsessions.
He was functioning without any connection to his soul.

Afbeelding van koendaliniekanalen en centra Zelfgemaakt, geen auteursrechten (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

So now, he was telling me, I was receiving telepathic communications from his mental body.  A while back, when he’d been fixated on astral travel, the communications came from his astral/emotional body.  All his subtle bodies were continuing to develop just fine, but independently of each other and, he reassured me, they were gradually reconnecting as he was healing.  I guess that explains why he’s become able, in the last few months, to manage the occasional short phone conversation and to send me a birthday card.

Meanwhile, my discussions with his mental body continue to amaze and expand my own consciousness.  Sometime soon, I’ll share with you the ‘Idiot’s Guide to Subtle Bodies’ he prepared for me.

I feel jubilant that I can finally make sense (well, to myself, at any rate) of what has been happening, and that I’ve regained a connection to the wisdom and wonder that kept me spellbound when he was a boy.

A room without a roof

Yes, OK, could be classed as cheesy, but the song makes me happy and there’s a certain synchronicity or two in there.

I lay in bed this morning, listening to the rats scuttling about (boy, they sound powerful beasts!) in the loft above my head and trusting that – being notoriously intelligent creatures – they will steer well clear of the gaping hole that’s gradually replacing the landing ceiling just outside my bedroom door. (Clap along if you feel like a room without a roof…)  Well of course they will.  I mean, would you or I wilfully leap down a huge hole into a rat-infested cellar?  I’m sure leaping into a human-infested house is equally distasteful to a rat.

You see I don’t need the loft, so I’m (reasonably) happy for the rats to live there until my builder comes and puts in the fire break and fills in the gaps that let them through, not to mention repairing the collapsed ceiling.  So I send love and light to the rats, who have been here far longer than me, after all, and respectfully suggest that they stay up there.

I’ll admit that the current state of LIME (Life Is Miracles Expected) Cottage isn’t everyone’s idea of heaven, but I’m deliriously happy here.  I can cheerfully ignore the cracks in the walls and the leaks in the roof, knowing that all that is about to be fixed and I am living in my very own miracle home.

Yesterday afternoon I sat in my shady courtyard, sipping a glass of home-brewed elderflower champagne, kindly proffered by my new neighbour, and realised that I knew what happiness is for me.

As you can see, there is already the odd cosy corner.  I’d add more pictures, but broadband seems to struggle with two foot thick solid stone walls and is intermittent, to say the least.  So I think I’ll give up while I’m winning and try posting this.

 

Life Is Miracles Expected

I’m trying to convince myself that writing this post is NOT another displacement activity to allow me to put off clearing out the under-stairs cupboard!  In deference to that very necessary job, though – and the other masses of packing jobs that need doing, I’ll keep it short and sweet.

Very sweet.

The journey that started for me six months ago is about to be complete.  In a couple of days, I’ll be moving into the 17th century cottage that just managed to catch my eye one blustery January morning in a local estate agent’s window.

Owning my own home – far less a quirky, ancient listed building with a long, flower-filled garden, within a stone’s throw of two of Glastonbury’s sacred hills – was a distant dream.

Since then, I’ve been charting the story of LIME cottage through my blog (in the ‘cottage’ category, in case you’re interested and missed the posts the first time around).

I feel ridiculously happy and blessed to have been given this opportunity to prove that, by focusing on what we would like, we can allow the Universe to give us exactly that.

In the last week, my ‘Lime Curtains’ lady arrived with rolls of beautiful damask curtaining – perfect for my living room.  When I pondered the logistics of carrying the fabric, ironing board and sewing machine to the cottage by hand, I walked out of my house and right into a kind friend who arrived at 9.30 this morning with a van to transport anything that needed to be taken across in advance of the main move.

Tomorrow another friend will be on hand to help me measure and sew the curtains.  Others will be coming to transport the sacks of wallpaper peelings to the tip.

True, there’s still a leaking roof and a large hole in the landing ceiling.  Yes, the conservation officer is still pouring over my renovation plans and won’t yet give me the go-ahead for the works to begin.  But all these are transient details.  They’ll be forgotten as more miracles appear as expected.

I’ll even (miraculously) fight my way to the back of the under-stairs cupboard and pack or bin the contents.

Now, OK.

Honest – I’m on my way!

 

I want to teach Jed

What follows is a piece of writing I did about 8 years ago.

I was looking out some of my scribblings and thoughts of an educational nature for a friend’s daughter who has just graduated as a teacher, and thought this piece might be of interest to others.

I still believe and stand by every word.

I taught him last year.  I kept him in my classroom, most of the time.  I found ways to get him back, when he couldn’t stay there, and ways to get myself back, when it got too much for me.

 

Jed is courageous – massively so.  He takes on The Man.  He doesn’t conform because it’s the line of least resistance.  He stays true to himself, as he searches desperately for himself.  And that search, in our education system, could well destroy him.  I want to teach him and help him in his search.

 

Our system tells Jed he is ‘challenging’.  What a world we’d have, if every child grew up challenging, testing, thinking, experimenting and learning from their experiences, rather than their textbooks. 

 

Our system tells Jed his attitude is ‘wrong’.  He should accept unfairness, bias, dreary lessons from exhausted teachers who are buffeted from one new initiative to the next; targets that are number-driven, not people driven; results that compare unlike to unlike.  He should meekly bow down and cope with all these things, because life is like that.  What if it wasn’t?

 

Jed is very unsure of himself.  He swears and shouts loudly.  He throws chairs and punches.  He behaves in ways most people don’t.  He’s constantly told he’s bad and wrong and unteachable and impossible and he wonders who is right and what is right and why his way of reacting causes so many problems to him and everyone else.  He doubts himself.  He doubts his ways of interpreting the world.  He is deeply unhappy, but he doesn’t have a choice.  What if there was another way?

 

As educators, policy-makers, law-givers and law-enforcers, we rely on the fact that adults know best.  Children are young and know less, so we must teach them what we know, what we do and how we do it.  They must listen and work hard and develop self-motivation, so that when they grow up, they can run the world the way we run it.  What a recipe for progress!

 

A child who dares to say, “Hang on – I don’t think this is the right way; I don’t think this is the best you could do,” challenges us.

We left those feelings of uncertainty and self-doubt behind in childhood.  We don’t want them back.  We don’t want children moving us forward – challenging us.  No wonder we call it ‘challenging behaviour’.  No wonder we label them and exclude them.

 

Jed is excluded, again.  He calls back to see me after school.  He tells me what he did, what the teachers did and how much he wants to be back in school.  He has to have a special meeting before they decide whether to take him back.  He’s unhappy and unsure and he knows it will happen again and again until they finally wash their hands of him.

 

It goes without saying that Jed has massive strengths and a burning desire to learn.  With courage and tenacity like his, he could be a massive asset to society.  He could also be a suicide statistic or an inmate in a young offenders’ institution.

 

I want to teach Jed.  I want to teach him that there is another way.  I want to be able to tell him that our world desperately needs visionary young people like him who need to learn through experiencing and trying and testing; not through being told.

 

There are plenty of the other sort.  That’s fine.  Let them shine through the current system and come out with their clutch of A* passes and do the jobs suited to them.

 

Let the Jeds of this world learn in their way.  Let them not take anything for granted.  Let them learn philosophy and inter-personal skills and co-operative discovery and self-awareness from the moment they are discovered.

 

Imagine an education system where the infant school teacher announces,

“I think I’ve got a non-conformer here!”

She would say it with pride, like saying that Kirsty excels at literacy or Ahmed is amazing at sports.

 

They’d need a teacher who taught them how to learn, then let them try.  If they found a better method, they’d tell the teacher, who would also learn.  Targets and tests and results would be irrelevant, for the simple and excellent reason that anything worth being is, by its very nature, incapable of being tested and targeted.  The results would speak for themselves.  Society would be moved on by the people who dared to challenge our deeply imperfect system.

 

I want to teach Jed.  I want Jed to teach me.