This day will never come again

It must have been about 15 years, in my early 50s, since I read Anatomy of the spirit, Sacred Contracts and Invisible Acts of power by Caroline Myss. I didn’t take them out from the box when we shifted house last April, thinking I would not be interested to revisit them. Unpredictable as life is, 2 months ago I chanced upon her lectures and workshops on Youtube, and have been listening to her almost daily.

   

Written by a scholar on theology and spirituality, the books were exciting.  One of the few medical intuitives around too. It was the first time that I learned about the human energy centres, how they are related to our health and their connection to crystals. I discovered crystals. Like the other books by philosophers and new age gurus that I tended to read during low periods in my life or when I was going through some kind of crisis, their perspectives on life are written in a manner that I found entertaining and inspiring. From Deepak Chopra to Eckhart Tolle, Osho to Don Miguel Ruiz, they basically spoke about the same things, only articulated differently against different cultural and religious or secular background.  I found solace and inspiration in their thoughts, humanity and celebration of life. Maybe it was also escapism. I’ve forgotten most of what I’ve read and looking at some of them today, like those by Krishnamurthy, I find it hard to believe that I actually lost myself in them during those days. Their principle ideas and teachings are not at all far from those of my own religion, hence I connected easily. Manners of worship and prayer may differ but the themes and contents are similar.

I find Caroline’s offerings more substantial. She has evolved as a medical intuitive to become a spiritual director who teaches about spirituality and mysticism, intuition, health and healing. She incorporates prayers in her work. She opens and closes each of her lectures and workshops with a prayer from a saint, the psalms or other mystics. Beautiful verses in the English language. I pray and speak to God in my own language, as I have been trained to do since childhood. I know God understands all languages, but I feel somewhat awkward to speak to Him in English though it is the language that I express myself best in speaking or writing. Perhaps that is why I find vicarious pleasure in listening to Caroline’s prayers, brief and simple but read with love and grace. They do not waver from what my religion stands for. She refers to the Buddha often with reverence and speaks with conviction and fearlessness against religious dogmas that she finds to be obsolete and degenerating. I have not found her anywhere referring to Islam, except in acknowledging the sanctity of the fundamental religions and saying that mosques are among the houses of worship that are always full.

 

Caroline can be brutally honest in rationalizing on the solutions she offers to members of the audience who seek advice for their personal problems. She is a tough cookie, so to speak. I do not always agree with her. Nevertheless, I enjoy listening to her opinions and I admire her guts.

Underneath it all, Caroline emphasizes on our sense of personal honour to attain health in our mind and bodies, forgiveness for the sake of healing  and faith in order to ‘row with our life’  and love it with all its bad days and times. I notice that members of her audience are mostly women in matured years. Perhaps, like me, they have all played their multiple roles, rowed and arrived with pieces yet to pick up and hurts to heal. I am not sure if our journeys would have been easier if we had known her before we started, but it is a blessing that she has come into our lives now to help us pick up the pieces and heal the hurts. It is not as though our own faiths and wisdom have not guided us thus far, but for me she is there to alert me should I falter and she reminds me to be sensitive to the grace of God which I sometimes take for granted. Listening to her succinct reminders on our intuitive power to connect with the universe, is almost therapeutic. She expounds on the theory of archetypes in reinventing ourselves with academic content and mystical fervour.

Caroline urges us to be contemplative, to reserve time for a daily reflection of our lives, to do “holy listening” for that “pebble (falling) in the well”. I will borrow her mantra, “This day will never come again”.

I look forward to listening to her each time and I like looking at the crystals on her wrists, neck and over her pullover. They are usually red and orange hues. One of them must be carnelian, which I don’t have in my collection. Time to have fun again with my crystals. 

 

Writing is therapeutic for me and this time, Myss has sent me back to my blog. Tied up with daily routines, I need to be inspired enough to do that.  Perhaps this is also a timely  return to Caroline Myss as I am about to go back to school to study Counseling in a masters program.

Caroline says she is able to be the person she is now because of the way she lives. It appears to be more solitary than normal, her office is full of books and she has been studying and teaching for decades. This probably has given her the ability to look at life from afar, unlike those of us who have been rowing through the rivers of our lives often with excess baggage on our backs, unable to pause, let alone contemplate, long enough  to consider with clarity the important choices we have to make. There comes a time when we need someone to help us get that clarity through sharing their knowledge and experience. A friend and a wise companion on our soul searching journey which never ends. At least for me, it doesn’t.    

           

Unpredictable

Life is so unpredictable.

 Alman had his 6^th birthday party in school, a day earlier, on Friday 30^th March. This year it was the Angry Birds gang and Red’s slingshot that stood in wait on his birthday cake. After the kids’ festivities and the balance of his birthday cake was cut out and neatly packed in boxes for cousins, aunties and friends, Alman and his family went off to FraserResidence in the city, for a weekend getaway (though just 10 minutes drive from home, on the highway). (Alman intercepting: On Saturday it was his birthday again but on 31^st march la. After school, they went back  home and gets ready in time).

The first picture we received from Alman was of KLCC looming beyond their living room. Alman and Ishmael (Emel) are ever in awe of KLCC. Alman spends hours on end drawing Kuala Lumpur skyline with his adored mammoth in the centre, tracing it on the laptop and making paper cut-outs of it, looking out for it as soon as we get on to Akleh. He has three miniature metallic models of klcc, of different sizes. We got into quite a riot waiting for the first one from Poslaju which was facing serious staff turnover at the time.

So it was swimming, playground, room service for three days at the holiday apartment . The kids’ favourite is spaghetti carbonara. Tok’s birthday was on 31^st march too. So Tok and Opah met them at the pool and joined them for lunch on Saturday.

Come Monday morning Alman could not get up to go to school. He was excused for being too tired after the hectic weekend, so we assumed. But he seemed quiet, did not eat much and complained of sore throat and pain in the head. He could not get up for school on Tuesday. Tuesday night the doctor confirmed he had hand, foot and mouth (hfm)disease, his mouth already half full of sores. They hardly showed up on his hands and feet.

A couple of days later, Emel contacted hfm, with more sores on his hands and feet. Ween and Najmi took turns to be on leave. Cranky kids, screaming sessions ensued, while both parents tried to steal time to do some office work. Opah trying to soothe where tempers flew. Kids couldn’t get enough of cold milk and yogurt, especially Emel who is still breastfeeding and found it difficult to suckle.

Saturday night Ween found a blister in her mouth and on her hand. On waking up Sunday morning, she had a headache that grew worse into Monday. She was wobbling on the stairs. Panadol did not help at all. At 1am Monday, she was admitted into Ampang Puteri hospital with headache and fever, drip immediately administered, pushed into the isolation room due to the contagious hfm. After stronger pain killers, antibiotics and several tests, fever and headache came down and Ween was confirmed to have a viral infection and mild sinus. Thanks to the Almighty, it could have been worse. She will be discharged today though still with slight fever. She was told that fever and headache may recur but should be fazing off.

So for four nights  Opah and  Tok slept with the kids in their room while Abah took care of their Mama in the hospital. Emel woke up at least four times in the night asking for Mama. Bouncing on the exercise ball pacified him after five minutes or so. They could not wait to see their mother in the mornings, so we spent many hours in the hospital room. Togetherness personified within the four walls of the confining room.

On Wednesday, I had actually woken up with a rather debilitating pain in my lower back, which has been hurting from time to time for a few years now anyway. If Ween had not taken leave for that reason on that day, I do not know how I could have managed because   it was in the afternoon later that we discovered Emel with sores and crying incessantly. So I did get some measure of rest for my back for several days while the parents were home , as if to prepare me for taking care of the kids while Ween was in hospital subsequently. Particularly picking up Emel and pacifying him in the night. The kids are fine, kicking and rocking again by now.

Praises and Thanks to Allah for protecting my family from further harm and for giving my children and grandchildren the privilege of having reasonably healthy parents and doting grandparents to take care of them in trying times of need.

In the midst of it all, I sneaked in some time to visit Izaz at Soulsac and tried their new cold pasta. Not bad, but suggested they add toasted almonds or pumpkin seeds. Idzfan liked toasted almonds on his buttered brown rice, with greens and grilled spicy chicken packed  in his lunch box when he was home. Emel did ask again where Afan (Idzfan)was yesterday and Alman never fails to get excited whenever the Go Jetters on Cbeebies fly over the Sydney bridge, imagining Uncle Fan in the ferry crossing over from his house to the Opera House across. He has a fascination for beautiful buildings. Like his beloved KLCC. But he has not decided yet whether he wants to build or design. Because for now his greatest passion is the drums as well as the guitar as they are played in rock and metal. He wants to be Abah.    

  

Return to Melbourne

On Wednesday, 21^st March, Idzfan flew back to Melbourne with 2 suitcases to resettle there and start on a new job. I think he contemplated almost a year to decide on this next course of his life’s journey. And it was only towards the end of last year that I told him I was prepared for us to be separated again. Have to give priority to what is best for him at this time and when he first told me he had decided to take up the attractive offer I prayed to God to give me  the strength…like He had given me all those years he was away before.

To think that on 21^st March 2015, we were all excited at the prospect of Idzfan coming home, after 13 long years, to join his friends in their consultancy at 6ix Design. Even then I knew it would not be permanent, as I wrote in this blog on 16.9.2016 (Reunion). The two years and ten months that Idzfan was home was the most eventful and fulfilling time of my life. All my children were home together in the same house with three additional members, my son-in-law and two grandchildren.  It was a daily celebration of togetherness, despite some financial limitations.

When he came back in 2015, it was not without any apprehension that it was a wise move. We just took one day at a time and did our best for whatever was in front of us. There were days when doubts lingered. But in time, things came to light. The blessings during that period of two years and ten months, and we are grateful. This realization keeps me comforted whenever I start to wish that he is still home as I know this is yet another giant stride to reach the next milestone.