Crash and burn

CAST LIST:
ME = the day-to-day me, the one who shops, works and pays her bills.
MYSELF = is that point of consciousness outside of me, my personality if you like, that takes a more objective view of my life.
I = my link with spirit which comes on the heels of meditation, or in the throes of a meditative state when I am on the computer.
(For more explanation read 'Me, myself and I' in this collection.)

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ME: I so cannot do this. I have no money and bills to pay and spending time connecting with spirit brings fine words, momentary peace but does not stop the 3 am panics! It really does seem to be a case of stopping life and starting mediating.

MYSELF: What did I tell you, a waste of time, a distraction from the harsh realities of life, a flight of fancy that will lead nowhere.

I: Ah! I see the worm of doubt is dining out well today. A full banquet awaits him ' it is not true, it is a waste of time, it stops me doing the important, money earning things, that make life bearable.

Really? How bearable is a strictly material but pointless life? One that is about image, possession and keeping up with the neighbours?

MYSELF: I wouldn't know I've never had one!

I: Of course you have, in past lives, and even in this there have been times when you have built and hoarded and prospered. When you have been, and still are, the envy of some. You want for nothing that is essential, what you crave is the excitement of shopping, the instant hit. But how often does that instant hit turn into long term disappointment, sometimes with yourself for being weak or misled?

Building a wall around yourself and feeling protective of your possessions and yourself is no way to live. It is a passport to addiction, to isolation and to wasted hours spent looking for a distraction that will be strong enough to quieten down the yearning that is in your soul.

Close your eyes and imagine a beautiful spiral staircase with golden rails, marble steps and plants on every stair. You can smell jasmine and sea at the bottom of the stairs and can see a golden thread of wispy light waiting for you to follow, so you do. Past one landing which is a beautiful green colour so soothing and calming against the soft green and gold. Down through an increasingly purple haze.

MYSELF: What the Jimi Hendrix version?

I: The purple deepens into a night sky and as you look up you see that the stars are in fact small crystals of every hue, from the deepest amethyst to the clearest diamond. You lie back on the soft carpet and watch as this symphony of colour moves across the sky as if you are watching a huge kaleidoscope being twisted above your head. From horizon to horizon you watch as the colours merge and blend, and patterns form and re-form all around you.

Suddenly you are aware that the sky is full of golden citrine shaped like a six pointed star, and you feel your spirits lift. Then it merges into the gentlest green as if you are in a cool garden on a spring day, being washed by light warm rain. You feel a sense of peace and belonging. As you do so you picture your favourite place, the place that brings peace and tranquillity and you rest there for a while.

When you wake you see that the sky has changed its hue once more and in the deepest reds, maroons and terracottas you see the pattern of your work emerge. Not just the pattern of the day-to-day work but the pattern of your thoughts, your aspirations and your dreams printed like a mandala on the sky. It has a form, it has a shape and not one single fragment is out of place, or unimportant. There are no gaps in the pattern where the night shines through, each line is complete in itself.

As you look closer you realise that there is not one pattern, but patterns within patterns, and twists and turns like infinity sweeping back across the sections, making new connections across old markings. Sometimes treading the same path time and time again, and sometimes adding new colours, new twists, new directions.

It is beautiful, exquisite. It is orchestrated by a hand and a mine far greater than yours, and it is indeed your life.

As you watch it move in space, much as you would watch a astronaught move across the space shuttle in slow motion, twisting in space as they move from A to B. You see that there is still that twinkling golden light within all the terracottas and the reds, there is one golden citrine that catches your eye. As soon as your attention is grabbed by the one twinkling light, the rest of the pattern starts to fade, what you can see is the immediate maze, the closest connections, but not the whole. Not the beauty, the intelligence of the design and the quality of colours that interweave and intertwine around you as you do the simplest task.

What you also cannot see is that as that golden light, even dim with despair, moves forward, staggers and takes a deep breath the whole beautiful structure move with it. Your intake of breath echoes around the structure like a breeze through the leaves of the tree, your tears fall like rain on the leaves. But the structure is sound, it is timeless, however long the pause needs to be, the multicoloured web waits, and when you are ready it is there as your launching pad.

ME: That is such a beautiful image that I have nothing more to say. Did I say 'crash and burn?' My goodness well this has been soar and see.