Days Of Gratitude - Hoop Dancing, Cardinals, Cafes, Art And A Little Revelation

The gratitude diary continues into the ninth month of the year.  Two-thirds of the way through.

These were four days in Newcastle between a time away that was wanted and a time away that in so many ways isn't wanted.  As I write this I am still away for that time away and look forward to being home.  It's a necessary time away but a sad and difficult one and it got more sad than expected.  It's all part of life, and I am now gaining a life that I want to live and live to the full.  That's not something I could have said not too many years ago.

Four days.  A lull.  A time that felt a bit unreal.  And a time that demonstrates my current zeal to live.  Days of trying new things and going to new places.  Some of them got listed in the diary.

The day after this I left home for Sussex to help with the final clearing and selling of what was the home of my parents and which was my home too - my only childhood home.  On the day that this post is published I will be leaving that house for the last time.  It's pretty empty now and doesn't feel like my parents' house now.  Contents have gone to the tip, to family, to charity shops, and some to refugees.  More will be taken for family and refugees very soon and the remainder will be cleared by a house clearance firm.

I hope that the new owners and/or residents love it there.  My parents moved there just a few years after getting married and never moved even though they considered it several times and there were a couple of periods of looking at lots of other houses.  We came quite close to moving once but the house we wanted was taken off the market.  My mother said it was good that we didn't move.  Finances wouldn't have worked out well if there was any larger mortgage to pay off.  So they stayed in that house and made it a good home, filled with the things they loved.

So.  Four days, between the joy of Greenbelt and the non-joy of the job-nobody-really-wants-to-do-but-most-people-have-to-at-some-point.

September 1st

Grateful to have taken the plunge.

Grateful to have tried something new.

At Greenbelt I stood and watched a guy play with a hoop. Returning home I find notice of a hoop dance workshop once more.

I have heard of these workshops since they began. I wanted to try. I couldn't.

This time I went for it in full knowledge of my unfitness, lack of balance, stiffness, and of having not really played with a hoop since I was six and was pretty ridiculed at school for being so crap at it.

Yep. Ridiculed. And wounded.

One more kick towards the darkness.

I am grateful that tonight I played again.

One more caress back into the light.

Yeah. I can't do it. Or much of it. I could begin to do a couple of things.

But I can't set a hoop spinning round my middle without it falling to the floor.

Yet.

Yet is a word I didn't used to use of my lack of a skill.

Yet.

I will play with a hoop again. And see what happens.

Does anyone have nice hoops they don't want? I think regular play would be excellent for me physically and mentally.

So Clare had a good time. And if she hadn't? Well that would have been okay too.

September 2^nd

Grateful for the meeting in Broadacre this morning. It may lead to good things.

Grateful for a free evening of meditation even though it all felt a bit cultish possibly. I enjoyed it but my inner siren said "Danger, Will Robinson."

Before the evening, Blob met this priest. A man from Ampleforth, a place currently embroiled in further accusations of sexual abuse and of cover ups, this time unrelated to Basil Cardinal Hume.
Grateful for another priest today - the Anglican Bishop of Grantham. He has publicly stated that he is in a gay relationship. A brave thing for a bishop to do.

Hopeful for a church future - if the church has any worthy future at all - in which neither sexual abuse nor loving sexual relationships are ever covered up.

A future in which churches aren't so twisted in doctrine or practice.

September 3^rd

Grateful for street logos and art.

Grateful too for cheap clothes in Byker and a superb toastie in a Byker cafe.

Also grateful for a moment of revelation in a discussion with one of the evangelical praying people in town.

September 4^th

Grateful to be able to buy just the right kind of liquorice for Amanda. I went to Tynemouth just to buy it.

Grateful to have got the best seat on the Metro.

Days of Gratitude - Autscape, Friendship, And Finding Freedom In A Cemetery

I am posting this on August 25th.  Today would have been my mother's 72nd birthday.  She died a few days after reaching her 70th birthday.  Facebook keeps giving me memories to share each day and most of them have been status updates about the events leading up to my mother's death.  Every day I am given the option to share some painful circumstance.  I haven't been sharing.

The morning after my mother died I had to return from Sussex to Newcastle, leaving my brother to deal with everything for a while.  On returning to Newcastle I attended the appointment at which I was officially diagnosed as being transgender.  It's tempting to wish that my mother had lived to see that day and the two years that have passed since then.  But no amount of wishing would make it a reality.  After that appointment I returned to Sussex.  I wrote the address for my mother's funeral and reading it was a privilege - and quite a challenge to not fall apart at certain points in it.  I posted the address in a post on this blog and it also appears here, the final ever post on my mother's blog which she lovingly wrote nearly every day for quite a few years and filled with family and friends and many photos.

That all happened two years ago.  This is now.  And these are five days of memories for this month, to add to the memories Facebook keeps on recommending I share with the world again.


18^th August


Grateful for Autscape. A lot could be said about that.

Grateful though to spend much of the afternoon not at Autscape!

Amanda and I walked into Settle, relaxed together, ate ice cream and then walked a little by the river.

We found a great rock to sit on in the middle of the river and I even had a free thirty seconds for stone stacking, reminding me that I want to take myself off for a quiet day doing it.

19^th August


There is much I will miss. Much to think about too.

But I am grateful that tonight I will sleep in my bed.

Farewell Autscape for another year. Tomorrow I have to attempt to think about food again.

Grateful too that this time round only a week will go by before I see Amanda again - for a Christian festival!

20^th August


Being looked after when arriving at the meditation group in a state. Sitting alone in silence helped and then good people and lunch.

Grateful for the people who set up that group and for the way the enterprise will be expanding very soon. There will be a meditation centre in the city centre and there are great plans for the future.
Also grateful to look out of the window.

21^st August

Grateful for missing the bus home after the Sunday Assembly social and going a different route back to the Metro that turned out to be interesting even though totally an incorrect route.

This led on to becoming sidetracked in a cemetery I have been meaning to visit almost since we moved here.

Also very grateful that a year ago today I met a very wonderful woman. I couldn't be more grateful than I am.

22^nd August


Grateful that one year ago tonight I danced, played and sang barefoot in a big thunderstorm.

She had encouraged me to do so. She didn't accept my refusal.

A year on and we have a most marvellous and undefined relationship centred on a stunning magic friendship.

Days of Gratitude - Happy Pride. In Photographs and In Parades.

Here we are, five more days of my Sunday Assembly gratitude diary.

Some were very good.  And then by the end of the days, things weren't good.  That's life.  As my mother would say regularly, "It's all part of life's rich tapestry."

But the first day was good, even though the walk went a bit wrong.  The footpath that I was trying to follow for part of it doesn't exist anymore.  It's been swallowed by a rapidly expanding opencast mine and nobody thought that it might be an idea to divert the public footpath round the mine.  I tried my best to adjust but ended up somewhere I hadn't wanted to be and then had to spend an hour walking along busy roads in order to get back to my route.

It was well worth it though - those last 2 1/2 miles were fabulous.  And my viaduct photo.  Hah!  Take that, Bridges on the Tyne (and other rivers) website.  It CAN be photographed.  Even in summer.  So there!  Bridge and railway nerds will want to know that this is the Plessey Railway Viaduct.  I guess that very few of you will have walked underneath it but I can recommend it - and there is a bus stop near the start of the path so you won't have to walk for an hour by those busy roads.

14^th July

Grateful for another walk.

A little over 7 miles. But all of these pictures were taken in the same 50 metre stretch. Part of the 2 1/2 mile section during which I didn't see a single person.

The fallen tree in the third picture was my seat for eating lunch. On the other side of the river is a little waterfall. Very pleasant.

Also, I am boastful because I think my bridge picture is much nicer than the ones on a useful website about river bridges in the area.

15^th July

Grateful that on Monday I returned to meditation after a too long break. Grateful that at the end of the week (and this morning) I can say I have kept it up.

Grateful for this book. For now it is being a useful place to practice in. Grateful for the decent meditation timer on my phone.

Grateful to have half made the placard the book is sitting on.

Half ready for the Pride parade and maybe the Alt Pride picnic afterwards.

I'm not quite sure why this picture was posted on the 15th.  It was taken on the 14th.  But hey, Blob looks very happy to by lying in the clover even though he didn't manage to find any with four leaves.  I have never found a four leaf clover.  Ever.  I don't think that explains anything about my life though.

16^th July

Grateful for the Northern Pride parade.

For the picnic.

And for an unexpected meeting.

Well, this is my gratitude diary from the Sunday Assembly Newcastle group.  Glad that a few from the SA were able to to carry the banner at Pride.

SA is a "radically inclusive" movement.

17^th July

Grateful to return to the Quakers and to join them for lunch.

Grateful for flowers on the way to a Pride vigil service that I then couldn't attend.

18^th July

Grateful for a very quiet day and time to recover physically and mentally.

Grateful that there are many things which are not forever.

Six Months Ago - Positives, Gratitude, Hard Days and Craziness

I've been looking back at old Facebook posts this morning.  And there are things that I'd completely forgotten about.  Six months ago someone inspired me to write five positive things a day for five days.  I ended up writing them for ten days - the days immediately before Autscape, which was itself filled with positives.

The days contained so much good.  And so much bad.  Unless good and bad are just labels we apply to things and not a reality in themselves.  I've added in a few of the photos taken in the good of the days.

Six months ago I was into some quite crazy stuff.  And then I pulled away from it because of my mental health and because living in the security of habitual living was easier than living in the possibilities of craziness.  I think now I am returning to the crazy and this time I might be ready to lay aside the habits.  Time will tell. 

Six months ago today was day three of the positives.  Yes.  Six months ago today I helped plan and then officiated at a pagan dog funeral.  That was such a strange and happy day.  I need more of them.

OK. Someone inspired me. So here goes:

Day 1 of 5 positives.

1. Spending the evening in a healing environment with some rather wonderful people.
2. Eating too much of the chocolate banana bread that Beth cooked.
3. The words received in meditation tonight.
4. Learning that there is a mantra/prayer with the gorgeous name Ho’oponopono.
5. The unlikelihood of having met the person who inspired me and the way Spirit arranges these things.

Very little sleep. Haven't been able to go to the sacred drumming and have spent time collapsed on bed crying my eyes out because the sensory crap is just so damn painful today. All out of spoons today. So this is going to be a challenge:

Day 2 of 5 positives.

1. The friends I've met in the last two years.
2. The books I'm sharing this bed with.
3. The partial relief gained by sticking in Alpine MusicSafePro earplugs.
4. An unexpected decision made about placing tattoos on my wrists.
5. It's been hard work getting to number five but this is just a bad day, not depression and not despair. This - on bed, alone, only semi-functional, with earplugs - is so much better than things used to be when writing lists of positives every day as part of a self-harm support group and some days sitting for an hour and struggling to come up with a list of one. Of course there are many other positives - the roof over my head, having Beth and Kit, abundant water from the tap, the sunlight, and so much more.

Here goes. Far later than planned.

Day 3 of 5 positives. Ooh, they're positive today.

1. Helping to write and then co-officiating at a pagan funeral for a dog owned by some people I've never met before. I kid you not!
2. Spending so much time outside in quiet places and getting mildly sun burned arms.
3. Lying, deeply relaxed and content, in the grass on the route of an old railway while H sang Wiccan and Sufi chants to me.
4. Sticky toffee pudding and cream in the house of strangers and gluten free steak pie in the house of a friend.
5. The sheer unexpectedness of the day and the joy and laughter shared, even on the day of a funeral and that this list could extend a long way today. On days like these it is so easy to so much love my life and how different much of it is to how it used to be. 

Positives. Day 4 of (unspecified number)

1. The completely unhealthy indulgence of eccles cakes covered in left over clotted cream from last night.
2. Being so massively touched by part of "The Dying of the Light" (the last Skulduggery Pleasant book) even if I may be emotionally scarred for life by the trauma caused by what happened!
3. Giggling repeatedly at just how unexpected yesterday was and how different life is than I could have ever planned.
4. The deep love I have for certain of my friends and the joy that knowing they exist brings to me.
5. Spirituality is becoming light-filled and joy for me rather than an excuse to continue to chastise myself and live with guilt or shame.

Positives. Day 5 of however many, written while unreasonably stressed about a missing phone.

1. Buying a nice Celtic knotwork ring in Tynemouth for 50p.
2. Sitting out on rocks near Tynemouth, proving that it's possible to be completely alone at a tourist seaside place in August, chanting and praying and generally getting on with nature.
3. Being lent some books. Obviously someone thinks I don't have enough to read already!
4. A surprise phone call when I got to Whitley Bay resulting in a total change of plans and time spent with a friend by a river (which may now be home to my phone).
5. The feeling of tiredness having walked from Tynemouth to St. Mary's lighthouse before going for a walk.

Positives day 6 of 5

1. Church tonight and completely losing it in giggling fit during the service. Pub after church with friends.
2. The friend whose photo is on the facebook wall immediately under the box I'm typing this in. Love you.
3. I have my phone back and the hug from the friend who returned it was a wonderful hug. Love her hugs.
4. A happy afternoon with another friend, sitting in the deliciousness of Tea Sutra and wandering being a tad insane with her before meeting the friend mentioned in 2.
5. BUS PASS! Wow, so excited. Impatient too because it can't happen yet. But I learn it will be able to happen. Bus Pass. Bus Pass. Wow. Wow. Wow. Hallelujah. Now wondering if another friend knows about this.
6. The number of friends mentioned in those positives. And now I'm home and my family are here. As is another friend.
7. Blimey, when did life start to get good?

Positives: Day 7 of 9. Minor geek edition.

1. Sense8 got renewed for a second season. We walk with pride!
2. Beth says she's going to buy me a Leeloo multipass toy.
3. Person of Interest season 4 awaits me.
4. Skulduggery Pleasant. All of the series. All of it. And that the three of us are going to the Derek Landy talk and signing in a couple of weeks.
5. The hope that Star Wars episode 7 will adequately compensate for episodes 1 to 3. I can live in hope, even if it's unrealistic.

That's enough of that because there has been good on this quiet day. Being outside early this morning. Getting important financial things done and only having to pretend to be my aunt twice in order to get them done. So many good things to be thankful for. And things most of us take for granted - like automatic washing machines. 

Crappy head day. When the social and sensory is massively draining before it even begins. Nyah. Nyah. (But not Nyan. Cat. Not that cat.) But. Here goes.

Positives: Day 8 of 10

1. Daniel Barenboim is playing piano for some Beethoven with the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra. 'Tis stunning. Love Beethoven. Love Barenboim.
2. Spending time with a friend. Long text conversation with another friend. Friends. And that there are very special ones. The ones with whom the connection runs so much deeper for me than family.
3. Tea in Tea Sutra. Of a variety that the staff pretend to be able to pronounce but they never pronounce it the same way.
4. The name of Valkyrie Cain. And that I'm getting closer to working out my own name. But not my true name. Wouldn't want that of course. At least 4 friends will know what that means!
5. The book Everyday Meditation by Tobin Blake. Among the best £1.50s I've ever spent in a charity shop. So glad to have come back to it, each day with it is a pleasure.

Brain fog, foggy, foggety, fogged.

But the lights that unexpectedly penetrate fog can be incredibly beautiful.
So the plan is to enjoy the lights when they appear rather than spending all the time shivering in the dark and chill of the inner fogginess.
And then the wind will blow and the fog will clear and the greater light will warm and heal.
Blessed be.

Get 'em in early today. Positives: Day 9 of 10.

1. All the overload symptoms earlier were complete horrible (swear words) crud to cope with. But they don't last forever and concerted self care means crisis level has been reduced to "Danger, Will Robinson" level and that feels SO much better. Things DO get better.
1b. Ear plugs. Silence. Closing the door of the room.
2. The jar of lemon curd I bought in Scots Gap last week.
3. Only 117 pages left of the last Skulduggery Pleasant book so I can finish it before going away.
4. Today's sunshine and warmth.
5. The anticipation of the Autscape conference this weekend and the talk and book signing in ten days time. Anticipation can be a wonderful thing.

Positives: Day 10 of 10 It's the final count up.

1. The day improved greatly. Felt so rubbish this morning and everything was still too loud and cried quite a few times. It's much better now.
2. Walking this afternoon with a friend at Shafto and at Bolam Lake.
3. The carrot and coriander soup that friend bought me from somewhere.
4. This: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9R3IchTZBENine days until we go and get the (signed) book.
5. My counsellor/guide from White Lodge when I was sixteen, who has just published some wise and relevant words.
6. That this is the final day of these positives because tomorrow I leave for the Autscape conference and that's exciting. And it's the unknown too so that's a bit daunting. 

Mental Health Hell and the Positivity of My Life

My mental health has been pretty damn naff recently.  There have been horrible days and even worse hours.  Mental health has stopped me doing many of the things I wanted to do.  It's paralysed me at times.  It means that instead of going to Sussex for 11 days I have had to stay in Newcastle.  I've cried lots, broken down very publicly in the city centre, hurt my head through banging it, had a constant headache from sensory overload, and really struggled to keep going at times.

Yes.  I could look at the last month and choose to say that it's been a terrible time.  I could focus in on the bad things.  I could focus on the painful meltdown on Tuesday and the way I stopped being able to function when sorting things for refugees and the way I had to walk out of my mindfulness session and cry in the corridor.  Or I could focus on the good.

I could focus in yesterday on how awful I felt in the morning, how I didn't even have the spoons to get back on the metro and come home from town.  Or I could focus on how good the day got when it became a surprise.

I have a choice.  To focus on the bad and the pain.  Or to focus on all the good things, accept the bad, and move on from there.  Because the bad is bad.  And the pain is pain.  I can't deny it.  I can't pretend that all the rubbish isn't there.  But I can choose to focus elsewhere and see that, even with all the rubbish, life is a wonderful thing.

Because there is so much good and so much hope and so many good people.  Taking - as examples - my Saturdays:

Four weeks ago I danced with a new and very valued friend, barefoot in a thunder storm at Autscape, a conference/gathering run by and for autistic people.  Four weeks on I know that Autscape was very important to me and there are things that happened there and things it taught me about myself that I haven't even begun to process.  In some way Autscape will affect the rest of my life.  That weekend I met awesome people.

Three weeks ago I went to a barbecue from which arose decisions that are majorly affecting my life.  Majorly.  Three weeks ago I found somewhere that has almost become my second home.  Somewhere that I hope will become a big part of my life.  That barbecue was just a barbecue and the person who invited me was really just inviting me to a barbecue.  Neither of us knew that it would lead to so much in such a short space of time.  That weekend I met awesome people and because I met them I went on to meet more awesome people.

Two weeks ago was a day I could say was rubbish.  Because the first half of it was pretty bad in terms of mental health difficulties.  I wouldn't wish those difficulties on anyone.  But then there was a wonderful message from an awesome friend, a message that really helped me face the day.  And then on what had been that rubbish day I had a surprise meeting with another awesome friend.  We pretended to have an appointment at the optician in order to help ourselves to hot chocolate (my awesome friend does things like that!) and then we sat in the street drinking and laughing with each other.

On the worst days there is good.  On the day I broke down so much in town my friends came to the rescue - especially three wonderful people from Autscape who stayed with me as much as they could through constant text messages until I was recovered enough to get myself safe.  I count myself as massively fortunate in the people who have come my way recently, some of whom I've met in surprising ways.  It's like I suddenly have this brand new extended family of people who I love, who love me and with whom there are all kinds of unexpected connections.

A week ago I belatedly got involved in the work going on in solidarity with refugees.  It took seeing people and donations in my new second home before I finally decided that I couldn't stay away from giving something to the cause.  It's entirely possible that the future will see me continue to be involved in that in bigger ways.  And I've met awesome people.  It takes a lot for me to stand up and do something positive.  But I think right now I am standing and I don't want to sit down again.  The work is there and will continue to be there and, if I allow it and choose it, there is space for me to be useful.

And tomorrow I go to a meditation group for the first time.  The start of what will be a weekend I am really looking forward to - though a very different weekend to the one I would be having had I not had all the mental health issues I've had recently.  There will be awesome people there too and awesome people throughout the weekend.

So.  My life has been a mental health hell.  And I could choose to see it that way.  But it has also been a time of massive and unexpected blessings and of meeting the awesome people - many of whom I would never have met had I not experienced the mental health hell.  For the future I can only see more blessings and more awesome people even if the hell continues.

I had an hour this morning when my head was not hurting from sensory overload.  The first hour in a few weeks.  It was bliss to not hurt.  And sometimes it hurts so much and that pain inside my head falls down and across my body too.  But in this life, painful life, I rejoice and in the last weeks have become more and more thankful and more and more able to see the light that comes from without and the light that I have been becoming from within.

My painful life is one of positivity.  And overall, I love the way it is becoming.

Simple Words of Spirit - Received in a time of Complicated Doubt

January 2015. Written in darkness, in temptation to deeper depression – I realise that January is often like that for me, in a week of major doubt. Written in deep wondering whether God is real, whether Spirit is real, or whether I was just fooling myself with an idea, or a collection of ideas.

Like before I was told to pick up a pen and listen and write down what was heard. This time the words were simple. Simple concepts. Because when it comes down to it there isn't anything complicated about a call to return to what's already in the heart. Everything here is easy to understand – and actually easy to do if I let go of all the self-created obstacles. In truth there is nothing in the way of the spiritual walk or the path of learning to serve (are they the same thing?) unless we put it there ourselves.

Parts of the writing that came in the months before that night are more complicated – or at least less simple! Some of it I don't understand with much clarity at all. But this is obvious. A reminder of what is pretty much in lesson one for many of us. The previous writing won't get shared. And any further writing – once I'm quiet enough to hear again – probably won't be shared either. This only gets shared because of its simplicity and its broad applicability to the life of pretty much anyone at some time or other.

One thing – the phrase “the Christ” is a wide one. It doesn't have to imply being a church-going Christian, although I am one and am most definitely called to be an active part of the particular church of which I am a part. The phrase doesn't necessarily have to imply believing Jesus is alive or even that he ever was alive.  Take the phrase for whatever you want to take it.

Fooling myself? Perhaps. Are these words coming from beyond? Are they from somewhere closer to the essence and truth of the Self? Or are they just what my conscious mind says once all the analysis and over-thinking gets turned off? Or all three working together? Simple answer, I cannot say with anything approaching certainty.

Perhaps you have lost the way. But what is the way? And if you have lost it, can you not find it again and walk once more in the path awaiting you? You have allowed yourself to stray, to wander. You have allowed other concerns to impede the one concern. You already know how to return – to read, to pray, to meditate, to serve, to seek that purity.

And though you may at this time feel alone, you are not alone. Deep inside, at your core, you know that you are never alone. And you know that you were placed where you are for reasons beyond your imagination. You are not alone. I am with you. We are with you. Always.

All that remains is that you walk again, cry out again, seek again the within and the without. You can do it because you have strength and will be given strength.

You are tempted to give up. You are tempted to fall away. You ask if there is any point and you ask again whether that which is real is Real.

Do not give in. Focus on the safety. Focus on the revelations of the past until you reach again the revelations of the present – or at least the realisation that you are always in that place.

Again, you are not alone. Your essence is safe. I will be with you, for you, beside you, within you, embraced firmly in passionate love. I will never let you go and will continue to draw you, prod you, lead you and show you the ways into the Way, your Way, your Centre.

Remember the words – the Christ IS your path, the Christ IS at the centre of your being. Look to the Christ. Always. Unfailing. Unceasing. To the Christ. To the Victor. Return.

Return. Listen to the call and return into hope, into fire, into that growth into Being. Pray again. Sit again, alone with me. There is nothing to fear in Way, Being, Life. Come to me again and rejoice. This cannot be said enough. Rejoice. Rejoice.

That's all. You know what needs to be done. Look inside, find the answer. Rejoice. In love, rejoice. Return. In Christ, return. Recommit. To the path, recommit. You know it. Only you can do it. Only you. But never only you – never alone.

Yes, that which is real IS Real. Believe again. Know again. And again, run into reality.

I AM JOY - Views of Joy from Meditation and from Church, Experiences of Yesterday

My subject for today.  For someone such as me, who has suffered with depression for most of her life either at a low level or in a major outbreak, the following subject can take a lot of faith to enter into.  Nevertheless a lot has changed in the last eighteen months and I have been set free, and set myself free, from a great deal.  So today I say, in faith:

Last weekend, after a series of false starts and much procrastination, I found my way back to meditation.  I'd been putting it off for a while but I found a book about meditation in a charity shop that looked as if it might be useful.  It looked clearly written, clearly explained.  It started with the minimum of explanation before ploughing straight into the practical.  A series of one hundred exercises, one for each day unless you choose to repeat days or if you don't meditate on a day.  They start very simply and slowly expand.

The first thirty days are spent on technique, explaining through the exercises some different ways to meditate.  You can then choose which seems to suit your own temperament best.  I like that.  Too many meditation books give you one way to meditate even though everyone is different and what helps one person may hinder another.  Given that there are hundreds of ways to meditate it seems problematic to limit a person to one or two of them.  The remaining 70 days expand upon and deepen the meditation with a thought to sit with as you meditate and as you go through the day, with some explanatory text.  And between each ten days exercises there are several pages of text to help.  Tomorrow is day ten, after which comes advice on 'Overcoming Obstacles'.  For most of us those obstacles arise from within rather than from outside.  I'm sure I will write more about this book and give the title before long.

Yesterday was day eight.  The bulk of the exercise for the day was a mantra.  Some mantras are one word.  This was four phrases repeated across two breaths:

Breathing in, my body fills with light

Breathing out, I find myself at peace

Breathing in, my mind fills with joy

Breathing out, I realize that I am the joy

Of course the words "breathing in and out" don't need to be said.  Simple enough.  I had the time yesterday so was able to enjoy three sessions with this mantra of fifteen to twenty minutes each.

There have been "good" and "bad" days so far in which I could focus and concentrate and just be with the mantra or the breathing to a greater or lesser extent.  It's been easier than expected so far and I feel that enough has changed in me and I've been set free from enough of what has held me back - and enough of what I've allowed to hold me back - that this time progress can be made.  I truly hope so, having had so many kinds of spiritual false starts over the years.  Today's mantra ended with "I am stillness."  And I realise that I am experiencing a greater stillness in meditation than I've experienced in many years.  I'm sure that compared to the stillness of the future what I am experiencing is an insanely busy hive of activity, filled with all the tricks that ego can play, many of which I haven't begun to recognise.  But I'm encouraged by the stillness, the peace, and the joy.

I see in the mantra a view of the reality of a person.  "I am the joy."  "I am stillness."  That's a view that's common in religions and philosophies originating in India.  The author of the book is very influenced by some of that, having learned much of his own meditation practice through the organisation founded by Paramahansa Yogananda whose Autobiography was read by so many people forty years ago.  As a teenager I read some of it - and I've recently bought another copy.

It was Sunday yesterday, and in the evening I was at church.  The church has been running a little series on "The Fruit of the Spirit" a list of virtues found in the Bible, in Paul's letter to the church at Galatia.  Here's the list, from a blog containing lots of similar images that some of you might enjoy.  I hope she doesn't mind me grabbing one of her pictures here but I like it better than the many free images of the fruit being represented by smiling strawberries and suchlike.

Yesterday, quite fortuitously considering my meditation exercise, the series had reached "joy".  So the songs were joyful celebrations.  The Bible readings included joy.  Part of the prayer centred on joy too, but thankfully (for me at least) not in a "Whoop! Whoop! Dance around! I've got that Holy Ghost joy!" kind of a way.

I realised in the time of prayer that I could use the mantra when considering joy for myself.  And I could adapt the mantra too as a prayer for others and for the world, "holding them in light" as many Quakers might say:  "The world or person fills with light.  The world or person finds itself at peace."  Now of course me sitting and holding the world in this way for five minutes is not suddenly going to lead to a cessation of all war, hostility, hatred, revenge, horrific misuse of religion and everything else that is going on in the Middle East and elsewhere.  It's not going to suddenly halve the crime rate in Newcastle.  But if all are ultimately one, or if we're all interlinked then even my small and non-theistic prayer will be added into the melting pot of the psyche of the universe.  In this way even intercessory prayer becomes just as possible without a personal, supernatural, all powerful God as with such a being.   And even if you want to call that a kind of pseudo-spiritual hogwash then at the very least such a visualisation or meditation will in some way change how I view the world, how I view humanity and so it will change how I live.  And that change will have a ripple effect.

A question asked in the service - apart from the preceding question "What is joy anyway?" amounted to "How do we get joy?  How do we become joyful?"

The answer given says that it comes through relationship with God, with the divine.  That frequently preached answer says that joy isn't something that we humans naturally have but it is God's gift to us, given and grown when we spend time with God, turn ourselves to a life with God, and in faith receive from God.  The fruit - including joy - is of the Holy Spirit, a gift that arises and comes out of our relationship with that Holy Spirit.  Most churches teach, much as the Catholic Church, that spiritual fruits are "the observable behaviours of people who have allowed the grace of the Holy Spirit to be effective in them."  And that can work out fine.  The god-life can lead to a joy-life.

I noticed how different this totally orthodox Christian view is from the view expressed in my meditation.

The meditation mantra says "I am the joy".  I am already the joy.  The real me - beyond the physical, beyond ego - is joy.  The real me is love, peace, goodness, faithfulness and all the other fruits.  I don't have to receive these things because I am them already.  I just have to realise that I am that fruit and let go of the ways of ego developed since birth that tell me that I am not.

The Trinitarian Christian says "I am not the joy" and "I must look beyond in search of that joy and seek that it is given to me in and through the Holy Spirit."

That's a massive difference.  The meditation says "I am."  The Christian says "I am not."  I suppose like so many things much of this arises from concepts like original sin.  So while the Taoist claims that every child is born in the Tao, perfect and can find that perfection again, the Christian (usually) claims that we are born faulty, born under a curse passed down literally or symbolically from Adam.

So who is right?  The Christian who claims that fruit such as joy is an added extra, a gift given from without.  Or the Taoist - or Sikh, or many schools of Hinduism and Buddhism - who claims that fruit such as joy is an already state to be realised in an event or ongoing process of enlightenment?  And if we call God instead "source" as my meditation book will later, or if we call "The Word" from the beginning of John's gospel "The Tao" as Chinese Bibles do then does at least some of the difference fade away?  When I say "I am the joy" I look to "source" to consciously realise that truth, for enlightenment that truth may become my lived experience in this chronos (time-bound) existence.

Personally I'm plumping for the latter view.  I am joy.  I am peace.  I am stillness.  I know this is counter-intuitive because my experience in this world contains so much within my mind that is not joy, is not peace, is not stillness.  But I have come to believe that my experience, though it most certainly exists, is not the reality that underpins existence. 

But last night in church that made little difference.  As we asked the Holy Spirit to grant us joy I could join in the request.  Not that I be given a joy I lack by an external being.  But that I come to realise the reality that I am joy and realise that by a work not of intellect but of spirit.  And given the nature of that request and that spirit I can call it Holy Spirit.  And as the devout, good, honest Christians prayed their prayer may be answered too.  They may find that joy that is within and is real, interpreting it as an added gift, given by grace, planted at conversion and grown by God in relationship.  

Will their prayer be answered from within of by a supreme creator/redeemer?  At least on this day I have no problem with either answer because - just to leave you in confusion and bewilderment perhaps - I am a nontheist who believes God exists (but not for my experience) and that God does not exist, believing that this personal Christian God story is not the Real but that the Real has room for all kinds of stories, simultaneously existing and not existing together within this unreal universe of existence.  Confusing?  Perhaps.  But ultimately it seem liberating and maybe it will lead me to the place where I can walk in faith with any creed, rooted in love and the wonder of the other, which does not claim a monopoly of truth or hope.

"I am Joy" image taken from this site - from which the acrylic painting can be purchased.