In Your Heart

Here we are in March, getting on for a quarter of the way into 2019, and I’m getting a feel for what this year is all about – for me, anyway.  This seems to be the Year of the Heart.

When I first moved to Glastonbury (known in some circles as the Earth’s Heart Chakra, although I didn’t know that at the time,) ten years ago, I’d neatly packaged my heart away – stuffed it deep inside myself and decided that just surviving from day-to-day would be a major achievement.  In those early days, it was.  I’d been – I felt then – betrayed, abandoned and let down by just about everyone and everything I’d given my heart to and for the first few months, those betrayals just kept coming, thick and fast.

I remember renting a tiny annexe behind a shop with my fast-dwindling savings, rooting around in the short-dated reduced items at the supermarket and having no income, no prospects and no friends here.  It was a true dark night of the soul which lasted well into 2009.

Eventually I stopped wallowing in self-pity and reached out to others for help.  I found a lovely, intuitive life-coach who helped me to heal my dried-up, fragile, damaged heart, to begin to love myself and to expect and accept the love of others.  That turned my life around.  Soon I felt resilient, hopeful and learned to put out to the Universe for what I needed and wanted.  Paid work, new opportunities, acquaintances and friends soon appeared.  By the end of 2009, I was in a better place than I could ever have imagined and life was good.

It was around New Year of 2018 that I agreed with the Universe that I was now stable enough and ready for the next phase – for new challenges.

They arrived.

It was not an easy time.  I needed to stop sitting in front of my computer pondering metaphysical conundrums and to get up and deal with very physical problems.  It was all lower chakra stuff – root survival and safety for people I loved, followed by the gut-wrenching sacral issues connected to parenthood and the deepest emotional ties.  Depression and anxiety ricocheted around my family.  Gradually issues of power and control surfaced.  I worked to establish and maintain a safe and fair life for those who had lost everything, helping them to regain their inner sun.  It took bravery and resilience I didn’t realise I’d built up, but that’s the way life works.  We don’t get the challenges until we are ready to cope with them.

Then it was back to Glastonbury – back to the heart, in every way you can imagine.

Two people very close to me have had their lives changed by heart disease in these past few months.  In both cases it was very sudden, very unexpected and is throwing up massive challenges to their lives.  It brings up issues of mortality, of independence and dependency, of life-changing choices and ways of managing day-to-day.

At the same time, a friend and I have been working our way through Gregg Braden’s ‘Human by Design’ book and some workshops based around this.  It’s all about using the heart’s intelligence – the ‘little brain in the heart’ – and aligning it with our mental processes.

Then, as the final piece to the puzzle, I realised (as I said in my last post) that my ‘muses’ – the spirit guides, channelled messages and special intuitive humans I’d come to rely on for answers were closing the doors.  I tried one last time to contact Koimul, the Spirit Guide/s who helped me through so many difficult times.

JAN YOU CAN PICK UP ALL YOU NEED IN YOUR HEART

I was told. And when I asked why they were all moving away and leaving us alone, I was simply told,

YOU HAVE ALL YOU NEED FROM US

When I asked if they would return, there was no answer.  The crystal pendulum swung in a wide, empty circle, indicating that there would not be a reply to that.

So we lovingly took our leave of one another.  Now I need to trust that my heart and heart chakra are ready and strong enough to move me on through the twists and turns of this new chapter in my game of life.  They are, or I wouldn’t have brought myself here.

Communication – another way?

I’m aware that I’ve gained a few new followers recently – thank you so much and welcome to my ramblings and wonderings – so I thought it might be a good time to briefly explain the William connection before launching into another post about him and autistic spectrum perception.

William is a young man in his mid twenties, whom I met almost 20 years ago.  He began as a pupil in a class I was teaching – a class for kids with speech and language difficulties.  A set of circumstances which might be considered very strange, if you didn’t believe in pre-planned soul contracts, caused our paths to cross and re-cross in many ways, so that even now we are the best of friends.  Despite the fact that he is only able to communicate with me through text and email at present, I still have longer and deeper communications with him than with anyone else I know.

So yes, to begin with I believed my role was to teach William to communicate.  He had oral dyspraxia, which meant he had a very limited range of speech sounds.  Additionally he was on the autistic spectrum, which meant that social communication – reading body language, facial expressions, tone of voice etc. was challenging for him.  He made excellent progress, no denying that.  However at the same time, he and a couple of his classmates began teaching me other ways of communicating – ways I’d never dreamed of.

Alan could ‘beam’ states of mind into my head.  I didn’t have to be facing him, or even thinking about him, to find that I was aware that he was feeling angry, frustrated, impatient or in need of help.  Martin’s speciality was sending words to me.  I could ‘hear’ what he was saying, although no words had been spoken aloud, sometimes from across the building.  Once I spotted him and made eye contact, he’d give the briefest of nods, meaning, “Good, you got it.”

William was on another level entirely.  “I think,” he told me, rather deferentially, one morning when he was about eight, “I should tell you that I’m telepathic.”
He waited, a slight smile playing around his lips, for the full impact to sink in.
“You mean you can read my mind?” I asked, suddenly feeling horribly exposed.
He nodded, allowing the smile to break loose.

Of course the children used this form of communication amongst themselves all the time.  I’d often wondered how a bunch of kids with only the most rudimentary verbal language abilities were able to engage in imaginative games, with each of them understanding their role perfectly.  Once William twigged that I was sometimes able to pick up snippets of their telepathic communication, he took it upon himself to tutor me in these skills, although never overtly.

It’s subtle, this hidden communication – infinitely so.  By comparison, spoken language is crass and imperfect.  Our labels and descriptions, no matter how extensive our vocabulary, are often open to misinterpretation or simply inadequate to convey our true intent.

Having spent a lifetime closely observing children of all ages, and in particular watching my own three and my two grandchildren develop language, I firmly believe that all humans begin life with the subtle, non-verbal language.
“Oh, she understands so much of what we say,” parents will tell you as they cradle an infant in their arms.
Maybe. I suspect the tiny person is understanding far more of what the parent thinks. I also believe she is using this telepathic (for want of a better word) skill to communicate her needs to the mother. Most would not put this at more than a ‘close bond’ between mother and child.  What, though, if it’s something far greater?

Once they had learned to speak clearly and to follow the conventions of conversation, my little students more-or-less ceased using their telepathy.  Our society places great value on effective spoken and written language.  The children – Will included – worked diligently to improve these.  I was busily congratulating myself on our success and only dimly aware of what we had lost in the process.

As I’ve said, though, this was a soul contract, and although the children  went their different ways and I moved back into mainstream teaching, William and I still had far more to teach one another.

We stayed in touch.  Sometimes we’d have long, rambling, fascinating conversations that would last for hours, and I’d be amazed at how brilliantly he’d picked up the ability to speak.  At other times, though, he’d withdraw for days, weeks or even months at a time.  Conventional language caused too much stress and the best I could hope for was a single word text to let me know he was still alive or a ‘beamed’ impression of his state of mind.  Not great, usually.

Now it’s come full circle.  Yesterday, William sent me a draft article for inclusion in his second book.  It’s a stunner.

He begins by explaining how it is for people on the autistic spectrum to attempt to learn social communication.  Ruefully, he says:

Having to learn such skills is generally very difficult and time consuming. An analogy may be learning a second language which for the vast majority, autistic or not, is again very difficult and time consuming. And even then, few who learn a second language can match the fluency and competency of a native speaker whose language skills developed naturally as part of growing up.

He bemoans the fact that, despite this, the non-autistic population expect perfection from those challenged in this way.

Later, he begins to consider the reason computer-based language is easier for ASP people to manage:

Many autistic people demonstrate a good level of competency with computers – likely to be linked to their operation depending on clearly defined protocols and mathematics, things which are very different to how social communication and interaction works.  Most communication between people which occurs via computers is in a written format, offering a greater similarity with the clearly defined operating protocols of a computer, since written communication often takes a more formal and literal interpretation of language than face to face communication.  This also removes the need to attempt to understand body language and tone of voice – things often problematic for those with autism.

Only in the final paragraph does he allow his thoughts to wander into that other type of communication – the early ‘telepathy’ and our more recent forays into ‘remote viewing’.  William isn’t certain that either of these terms fully encompass or describe what is actually taking place.

[ASP people] have a naturally different method of accomplishing [communication].  What exactly that method is I don’t believe is fully understood at present by either autistics or non-autistics.  I don’t believe the correct words have been attributed to autistic matters to describe or explain it properly.  I suspect at some point this will be achieved and hopefully will allow for autism to be harnessed to it’s full potential and remedy the blindness of so many.

I hope so, William.

 

We are still compiling The Words of William Volume Two.  Volume One is available via Amazon as a paperback in the UK, Europe and North America and as a Kindle edition worldwide.

 

 

The Matter of Life and Death

I’ll call her Cherry.  Mutual friends will understand why.

And yes, the manner in which I discovered the news was – when you come to think about it – an inevitable product of the world we live in.

Cherry and I began teaching at the same school on the same day.  We also, by some odd quirk of fate, gratefully accepted a voluntary redundancy package some seventeen years later and left on the same day too.

It was a small school, with a small staff, so we saw plenty of each other and got along just fine.  The word ‘colleague’ sounds rather harsh and impersonal but I can’t say we were ever friends as such.  I knew her kids by sight and a little about her life, and she knew much the same about me.  I knew nothing of her dreams and fears, her aspirations and beliefs, as colleagues usually don’t.

Cherry tree blossoms (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

When we left work I moved out of the area.  She stayed.  Unsurprisingly we lost touch.  That was until, quite out of the blue, I received a Facebook friend request from her.
‘How nice,’ I thought and happily accepted.

So for the last few years, Cherry and I have ‘met’ via Facebook.  I’ve ‘liked’ many of her posts with a trite little thumbs up symbol.  She’s ‘liked’ many of mine in the same way.  I noticed, but never spoke about, the fact that we had far more interests and ideas in common than I’d ever realised when we used to see one another every day.

Around New Year, Cherry stopped liking my posts.  She also stopped adding her own quirky interesting pictures and videos.  I have to confess I barely noticed.

And then, a couple of days ago, I flicked Facebook on and noticed a red 1 next to the little speech bubble icon.  Someone had messaged me.

With hardly a thought, I opened the message.  The name of the sender was unfamiliar at first, despite the ‘Hi Jan’ greeting.  As I read on, I discovered that it was Cherry’s daughter.  She apologised profusely for informing me via Facebook, but it was the only contact she had – and she wanted me to know that Cherry had died the day before.

Cherry.

Dead.

I had no idea of the circumstances, and it certainly wasn’t appropriate to send back a string of questions.  I sent a short message of thanks to the daughter and sympathy to the family and switched off.

Every day we receive news of cyber deaths; personalities we never met but felt we knew have photos and obituaries posted up on social media and we react according to the degree of vicarious attachment we felt to those people.  This was my first personal cyber death announcement and it shocked me to the core.

You see I had no context for Cherry to be dead in.  Accident?  Illness?  Quick or lingering?  Painless or agonising?  I couldn’t know.  Cherry had simply ceased to be a human being and THAT was the thought that stayed with me.

For the next two days, she was seldom out of my thoughts.  I’m not afraid of death.  I have complete and total belief in the eternal, undying nature of our greater selves and the transitory nature of incarnation – a game we play for a few 3D decades to gain experience, interact physically with others, bring Love to our corporeal existence and expand the Cosmos.  I’m free of any fear of divine retribution or judgement.  I knew that Cherry, in terms of her own essence, was still very much alive and aware.

What was affecting me – in a way I would never have expected – was the thought that as I went about my everyday, mundane tasks, she was not.  I cleaned my teeth.  She didn’t.  I went shopping.  She didn’t.  I relaxed with a cup of tea.  She didn’t.  All of these taken-for-granted earthly experiences had been Cherry’s to share.  Now they weren’t.  I’ve had many encounters with death, but none has affected me this way.

It was still bothering me last night, when I was fortunate enough to join a meditation channelled by a friend in the US via Skype.  Before the main meditation took place, her Guides turned to me and asked whether I had anything troubling me.  Rumbled.  So I told my little story and explained that I couldn’t understand why this was bothering me so deeply.

“Let’s breathe together while we find your answer,” they said, through my friend’s voice.

To my surprise and delight, they made contact with Cherry.  She wanted me to know she was fine.  But I already knew that.  Then they explained that although we’d not had a close relationship, there was still a connection.
“When you dream or leave your body in other ways,” they said, “you make contracts and agreements with others.  You and this colleague made an agreement that when she died, she would use her death to show you what an amazing, wonderful, precious experience life on this planet is.”

What a gift that was.

Thank you, Cherry.  I hope very much that – unknown to my conscious self, perhaps – I was at some time able to give sudden, special insights to you in return.


Embed from Getty Images


I wish you well on your cosmic journey from here on and congratulate you on completing another round of corporeal experience.  I’ll welcome that transition when it comes to me, but meanwhile – thanks to your gift – I’ll value these everyday physical experiences and feel profound gratitude for being human.

 

 

 

Spirit of Place

Do places have spirit?

English: Chalice Well Gardens (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I’m guessing most people would say they do.  Why else would people travel vast distances to holy, ancient or just plain incredible places?  Why else would sitting in the Chalice Well Gardens be so much more powerful than sitting in the cafe at Morrisons?

Right.  Places have spirit.

So does LIME Cottage have spirit?

I believe it does.  I felt it the first time I entered the empty, abandoned, run-down place last January.  It felt gentle, calm, resigned but welcoming.  I’m not talking here about ghosts or presences, but about the very structure of the cottage.

In the early days I spoke to it – the way others speak to cats or dogs.  I wandered around touching the walls, sharing my plans and dreams for it.  We were hopeful then, LIME Cottage and I.  Naive, certainly, and crazily optimistic, but committed to rescuing it from years of decay and turning it back into a home.

Then the others came – pen-pushers first: bureaucrats with endless forms to fill in, permissions to be sought, conditions to be met.  Hot on their heels came the workmen – builders, carpenters, electricians, plumbers, painters… an endless stream of ‘two sugars, love, if you’d be so kind’ and ‘that’ll be okay if we just squirt a bit of foam in there’ and ‘won’t be able to make it until Thursday at the earliest, sweetheart, but we’ll get it sorted’.

Their energy took over.  Decisions were made and corners were cut and I tried – really I did – to keep up with the comings and goings, the contractors and sub-contractors and the changes they were making.

For three long months these people took over.  Occasionally I mustered the strength to query decisions or ask for clarification, but the fraternity closed ranks and sniggered, assuring me they knew what they were doing, and that another cuppa’d go down a treat.

My spirit was all but broken.

What about the spirit of the place?

It bided its time but the trust between us was wearing thin.  When the workmen had left at the end of the day I felt lonely and alienated – cast adrift in a building site that bore no relation to the cottage of my dreams.

Things finally came to a head when the shower-room light stopped working.  It sounds so trivial, but it was the proverbial straw that broke the back of this camel.  It came after mistakes by plumbers, the central heating breaking down, unfinished work by builders, the return of the loft rats and several other small but distressing events.  I’d come back from my holiday ready for anything and within 48 hours I was broken.

Pushing aside the white flag of surrender, I asked for advice from three of the wisest sources I know – Higher Will and two fellow WordPress bloggers whom I’m now proud to call friends.  All of them responded.  The messages were as kind and as uncompromising as I’d hoped.  I was helped to see the reasons behind the problems; the reasons I’d invited such difficulties into my life; the way to treat each problem as if I were playing a game of chess, and then – right out of the blue – shown by one of them that the cottage was not happy.

Like any other geriatric, a sudden deluge of changes imposed without permission made it grumpy and stubborn.  It no longer trusted that I was working in its best interests.  It did not like the workmen.  The glossy new shower room with its sleek white and chrome finish was definitely a step too far.  I was urged to speak to the building, explain, comfort and compromise.

So I did.

Gently I explained the big picture, pointed out my own needs and agreed to do something about the shower room.  My penance (actually a very pleasurable one) involved spending two days trawling around antique shops, charity shops and everything between to find delicate, beautiful items that would soften the room and give it the charm and beauty it needed.

As if by magic, the light began to work again, the cottage felt loved and loving again and I set to work to solve the rest of the problems.

The workmen are just about finished now,  the cottage has been returned to the warm terracotta it was once painted, with the ugly cow-pat brown covered over and I have an afternoon free to finish clay-painting that shower room.

LIME Cottage has a spirit built up over centuries of partnership with here-today-and-gone-tomorrow humans.  No wonder it’s cautious and lacking in trust.  It’s still standing, though – and so am I…  thanks to wise friends and a determination to see this project through.

 

 

 

And there on the doorstep…

So when the doorbell went at lunchtime yesterday, I wasn’t in the best of spaces.

I’d done my back in the day before and was in quite a bit of pain.  I was upstairs in the study and the thought of making the arduous journey downstairs was tempting me to ignore it.

On the other hand, an unexpected ring at the door is an opportunity…

So slowly and uncomfortably I made my way down the stairs and along the hall.  As I approached, I could hear whoever-they-were outside chatting happily – two female voices.

I opened the door and there stood two of my dearest friends.

You know that bit in a dream, when you suddenly think, “This is too far fetched to be happening – it must be a dream,” and instantly wake up?  Well I had that feeling, but I didn’t wake up.

You see – yes – both these people were good friends of mine, certainly, but they should not have been there.  They certainly shouldn’t have been there together.  Even more certainly, they shouldn’t have known each other and been chatting away as I’d hear them doing.  None of this worked.

I stared from one to the other in total amazement.  They grinned.
“Told you this would leave her speechless!” laughed L, the friend I’ve known for years, who lives in a village a few miles down the road from here.
“Not surprised,” agreed V, the friend I’d been on a couple of workshops with earlier in the year, who lives about 200 miles away and wasn’t due to visit for another month.

My mind was trying hard to make some sense of this.  It was failing miserably.
“You came together?” I asked.
They nodded and smiled some more.
“But how on earth do you know each other…?”

“You shouldn’t have any trouble understanding this,” V told me.  “It fits in perfectly with your philosophy of life, and how things work.”

She was right.  It did.

V had come to Glastonbury for the weekend to attend a workshop.  She’d forgotten to bring my phone number and didn’t know where my house was, so hadn’t been able to contact me.

L had, quite separately, signed up for the same workshop.  She’d arrived that morning and chosen a chair to sit in.  V had chosen to sit in the chair next to her.  They’d instantly found many things in common and decided to spend their lunch break together.

As they were walking along the High Street, L had expressed her interest in Mayan astrology.  A few quick mental calculations later (L has a mind like a computer) she’d discovered that, like herself, V was a Blue Lunar Eagle.

“That’s amazing!” L said.  “You’re only the second other one I’ve found.  It explains why we get along so well.  The other is my friend Jan.”
“Not Jan Stone?” V asked.

That was how they discovered that both of them knew me.  Obviously,  they then carried on down to my house to share their discovery.

Simple really, as long as you believe in miracles and synchronicity…

 

 

 

 

Fire and Knives

I once taught a lovely young girl who was in foster care.  After several years with the same family, she was told she was being transferred to a new placement.  It involved moving to a different town and changing schools.  

This is the story I wrote to help her with this huge transition.

Fire and Knives 

“How do I stop myself from having any pain?” asked Marnie.

“Pain?” said the Old One.  “What sort of pain?”

“Any sort,” replied Marnie, kicking at the dusty ground.  “Pain like… being burned and cut – just pain.”

The Old One shrugged.  “That’s easy; you stay away from fire and knives and things that can hurt you.”

Marnie scowled.  That was not the right reply.  “Suppose the pain comes after me, though, and no matter how hard I try, I can’t get away from it.  Then what do I do?”

“Ahh!” said the Old One, slowly.  “That sort of pain.”

The Old One wandered over to his rocking chair and sat down gently.

“Come and sit with me, Marnie,” he said.

“Don’t want to sit,” scowled Marnie.

“Fine,” smiled the Old One.  “Just you stay standing, then.”

“Don’t want to stand either,” Marnie grumbled.  “Just answer the question, why don’t you?”

“Well it’s an interesting question, you see, Marnie, and one that deserves a good answer.”

“SO GIVE ME THE ANSWER, THEN!” screamed Marnie, kicking furiously at the side of the house.

“Well, let me see.  I’m thinking this sort of pain wouldn’t be from flames and knives at all.  I’m wondering if this would be more like the sort of pain you get when you have to say goodbye to people and places you’ve known a long time, and you’ve got used to them and fond of them and it feels bad inside in every way.  Would that be the sort of pain we’re talking about?”

Marnie had stopped kicking at the house and was scuffing the ground quietly.  “Maybe.”

The Old One nodded thoughtfully.  “Yes, that’s a tricky sort of pain to avoid,” he agreed.

Marnie blinked hard several times and swallowed.  “So how would I avoid pain like that?”

“How would you avoid it?  Ah, that’s easy,” smiled the Old One.   “You’d start by saying to yourself, ‘I must be as nasty and grumpy as I can to the grown ups around here, then they’ll be glad when I go and they won’t miss me, so they won’t be upset.’  Then you’d think on and say, ‘I’ll be extra quarrelsome to my friends, and ignore the little kids around here, so that they don’t cry or make any fuss and they’ll be glad to see the back of me and then they won’t be upset, either.’”

Marnie was staring, open mouthed, at the Old One, but he smiled gently and kept talking softly.

“Then, of course, there would be your own pain.  You’d push it down deep, well out of the way and tell yourself how glad you were to be moving.  With any luck, if you kept it buried for long enough, it might not hurt any more after a while.  Simple, isn’t it, Marnie?”

Marnie was still staring.  “Is that the right way to do it?  Is that what you’d do?”

“What I’d do?  Good gracious, no!  Why would I even think of doing anything that stupid?”

“But you said…” spluttered Marnie.

“I said,” interrupted the Old One, “that’s what you’d do!”

Marnie went rather pink and started kicking again.  “So what’s wrong with that, anyway?”

“Well, Marnie, there’s a whole load wrong with it.  Let’s take the way you treat the adults.  They know it’s not your fault you’re leaving.  They’ve loved you for a long time and watched you growing up.  They’ve felt proud of the good ideas and help they’ve given you and they’d be proud to see you moving on as such a fine young person.  They’d like to have good memories of you.  But you’re taking all that from them.  You’re making them feel sad and disappointed.  You’re making them feel hurt and neglected.  That gives them lots of pain.”

Marnie slowly turned and wandered across to sit next to the Old One.  He carried on, as if he hadn’t noticed, although, of course, he had.

“Now what about those little kids?  Remember the bigger kids who played with you, when you were small?  Remember how kind they were to you, when they helped you make toys or played games with you?”

Marnie nodded.

“What are those memories like?  Good or bad?”

“Oh, good!” exclaimed Marnie, starting to smile at the thought of them.  “There was this one big kid, called Ashley, who always played ball with me.  It made me feel really important and grown up.”

“That’s right,” smiled the Old One.  “I remember Ashley playing with you when you were a real little tot.  Then one day Ashley just started ignoring you, didn’t he?  Just treated you like you didn’t exist.”

“He did NOT!” exclaimed Marnie, angrily.  “Ashley would never have done that.  He was really kind and friendly!”

“Oh yes, my mistake,” agreed the Old One, mildly.  “I must have been confusing him with someone else I knew.”

Marnie looked at him carefully.  She opened her mouth to ask a question, but then changed her mind.

“Go on,” she said.

“Where was I?  Oh yes – your friends.  They’ve been there for you when you’ve been grumpy and miserable and bossy and mischievous and they’ve kept you company and given you such a great bucket-load of happy memories to take with you on your journey.  Do they deserve to have their memories of you spoilt?  Do you deserve to have your memories ruined too?”

“Probably,” whispered Marnie, miserably.

“Can’t see much purpose in that,” shrugged the Old One.  “And finally there is your pain.  You got any painful memories at the moment?”

Marnie scowled.  “None of your business!”

“Ah,” he smiled.  “Keeping them buried, are you?  I’m guessing some of them go way back – back to when you were just a very little person.  And have they faded away?”

“Stop it!  Stop it!  STOP IT!” shouted Marnie, trying to block out his voice.

The Old One waited for a moment, until Marnie was still.  “I know it hurts,” he said gently.  “When pain goes deep, it hurts all the more.  You don’t start to feel better until you let it out.”

Then the Old One stood up and walked to the garden fence.  He looked across at the mountains in the distance.  They looked beautiful with the sun setting on them.

“Ah, Marnie,” he sighed.  “Just look at that view!  Drink it in and remember it!  Those mountains are worn into beautiful shapes, like carvings.  Wouldn’t they be dull and dreary if they were just smooth and round?”

Marnie looked at the mountains and shrugged.  “I suppose.”

“They’ve been attacked by fierce winds and sandstorms, lightning and torrents of rain, over the years, to get that way.  They’ve suffered too.  It’s the pain in our lives that makes us wise and strong and beautiful.”

He turned to face Marnie.  “There is another way – a better way.  Accept the pain, and the tears if they come, because they gradually wash the pain away.  Smile through the tears at those you are leaving behind.  Leave them the greatest gift you have – memories of the wonderful person you are.  They will give you wonderful memories back.  You’ll have no need to feel guilt or shame or bitterness.  Just know that life is an amazing journey, and take the best from every part of it.”

Marnie hugged him and the tears flowed and the pain that had been digging inside like a knife, or like burning, began to melt away.

Facebook – when is a ‘friend’ a friend?

OK, I’ll admit it, I’m probably the world’s last convert to Facebookism.

For years I’d held out against it.  I’d insisted that ‘liking’ someone or something was an emotional response, not a cute little thumbs-up symbol; that a friend was someone I cared about, related to and interacted with, not someone I’d never met who clicked a button in order to build their virtual popularity.

I was dragged, kicking and screaming almost, into opening a facebook account.  “It’ll help you publicise the book,” the (real) friends told me.  “It will drive sales.”

So I relented.  I joined.  Initially my worst fears materialised. (Fears tend to behave that way, of course, since we create our own reality, but my guard was down – I’d forgotten that!)  I was carpet-bombed with banal posts about the drinking and partying exploits of people I barely knew, I was exposed to the angst-ridden adolescent ramblings of  ex-pupils and I was approached to befriend people I didn’t know from Adam.

Then something quite amazing happened.  A genuine pre-Facebook friend began sending posts.  They were wise, profound, intelligent and thought-provoking.  She invited me to join a group and suddenly I was virtually meeting all manner of people who behaved the way my sort of friends do.  They sent personal messages and we started to get to know each other.  It was beginning to feel like a community … and I understood.

Yes, Facebook is a virtual, 2D version of friendship, but that doesn’t make it any less real.  All experience is real! We respond to this incredible world around us in all manner of ways – face to face is just one of them.  I’ve now found yet another way to interact with it.

So feel free to become my friend – real, virtual or both – and if you’d like to follow me, you’re very, very welcome.  I’ll do my best to lead somewhere worth going.