Are You Knitting?

Most of us have had the experience of praying for something that just didn’t happen, despite grazed knees from all the grovelling, or visualising something that just didn’t materialise, despite a whole armoury of affirmations. Does this mean we just weren’t positive enough, faithful enough, aligned enough or could there be other reasons why (to put it bluntly) we don’t always get what we want? 

 

Contrary to what some popular spiritual teachings are proposing, our divinity is not a personal online shopper who receives an order from us, fills it out to our demand and delivers it a couple of days later. I agree that that’s kind of fun, but that’s why Woolworths exists, not God. What exactly, do you think, is the grand meaning of human existence if all we are doing here is, well, shopping? I’m all for making dreams come true and embodying our desires, but that is the vehicle of human existence, not the purpose. Let me expand on that subtle, but significant distinction.

 

That car / wellness centre / full body massage / new Alanis Morissette CD (I hope my husband is reading this) that you want is part (and hopefully only part) of your desire. Our desires are encoded in our DNA (the readings call them ‘the voice of your divinity’) and are very worthy of our attention. Our desires, or visions, drive us forward, give us focus, they essentially carve out what would otherwise be an undefined life. But actually getting them, or achieving them, is not really the point. Ask any world-weary celebrity or billionaire (even Mother Theresa if you read her personal letters) if getting and doing everything that you want makes you happy for ever after.

 

It is who we become in the process of making our dreams come true that is important, not so much the dreams themselves. The masterpiece we are creating is ourselves, not our lives, despite so much current focus on having it all, reaching goals, making dreams come true. A spectacular life, even one focused on service or spiritual upliftment, does not mean much to someone who cannot love the self they have become in the process. And that self is of course the only thing that travels beyond this temporary world we live in, the rest is illusion.

 

That is why our divinity is far more focused on the process of reaching our dreams than the dreams themselves. The universe, or God, or your higher self (I promise it doesn’t mind what you call it) is interested in how you develop and expand as you go about creating what you want. As such, it’s far more likely that your visualisations of your dream job will be answered by providing you with tools, insights and growth opportunities rather than the job itself just landing at your feet.

 

This has been sweetly explained in the readings using two different analogies. One was the image of a magic carpet. There are always magic carpets around for us (i.e. vehicles for making dreams coming true) but if you can remember seeing a magic carpet arrive next to someone, it never lands completely flat on the ground next to their feet. Instead it hovers just above the ground, requiring them to step up if they wish to use it. The solutions to our problems or the next steps to our dreams are always available but they will require us to step up in some way (to our fears, our truth, our talent, new levels of commitment etc) because that’s the point! The aim of this game of life is our stepping up, not really what we get as a result.

 

I’ll conclude with the second, symbolic, illustration of this understanding from someone’s reading, which puts it beautifully:

 

‘You keep on asking for a jersey [substitute lover / published book / full bank account]. We’ve given you 50 balls of wool already……………………..…why aren’t you knitting?’

 

 

©  Angela Deutschmann www.angeladeutschmann.com

 

    

 

 

Optimistic or naive?

Garrick and I were subdued in the car this morning listening to the latest news on 702. What I heard was the crumbling of Zimbabwe, the compromise of our judiciary, public broadcaster and police; and key public figures saying that they would die – and kill -for the president of the ANC. Even for a Pollyanna like me, this is distressing.

Some of the people around me – close friends, family and clients – are seeing Africa (and South Africa is actually a part of Africa even if we do a good job of pretending it isn’t) getting steadily, and inevitably, more difficulty to live in. As a white person. (Though they don’t always add that).

Others – and often I’m the leader of this pack –  talk about the creative and transformative opportunities that exist here, and nowhere else and believe firmly that keeping our minds open, positive and keen will attract what we want. From this perspective, it would make sense NOT to listen to the news, not to stay in the room when friends start to prophesy African doom and not to give any head-space to anything other than my dreams, hopes and visions.

That would actually be easy for me, it’s my natural and deep inclination. Yet, a nagging voice chides me for being naive, prods me about the future of my (white, male) children and casts unwelcome shadows on my optimism.

The last group reading that I did addressed some of these concerns from these two perspectives:

• Global Renovation

Is the world the way you like it? Do the systems, nations, businesses of this planet operate according to your highest values? Most citizens of the earth would say No. We want a simpler, cleaner way of life. We want a world driven by values and not by commercialism. We want to co-exist harmoniously with our planet. And yet, when things start to change (electricity shortages, fuel prices) – even if they may well be changing in that direction – we don’t want that either.

You can compare this to having your home renovated. You are the one that was dissatisfied with how it looked before, and you demonstrated this by calling an architect or contracting a builder. You know that the renovations are going to end up giving you a nicer place to live in, and yet you are still inconvenienced and often severely annoyed by both the process and the cost. Understandable! 

Maybe we are renovating the planet, and maybe we are the ones who called for it.

The only way that I can see to work with this is to accept some chaos and upheaval, to let go of some attachments and to be part of influencing the design of our new home so that it looks the way you want it to look.  You can criticise all you like from the sidelines, or you can be an empowered part of the process, designing the planet you want to live in. If you are expecting ANY country, ANY government, ANY energy supplier, to make your life work for you, then that is a disempowered, albeit common, approach.

• Dominance and Submission

Only when Africa breaks its centuries-long cycle of dominance and submission will we heal the disparity that causes violence, crime, dictatorship, poverty and spiritual hopelessness. What that means in practice is that those who have – legitimately or illegitimately – managed to gain dominance, need to say no thank you to it, to bring others on board and share power and resources. The submissive cannot enable this. Only when the dominant party in any situation is prepared to let go of absolute power in exchange for absolute parity, will dominance and submission cease to be the only roles we know how to play.

The idea of global renovation and a short-circuit in the cycle of dominance does not make me feel that things are getting easier, but it does make me inspired to be part of a new world. If that’s naive, then I’m proud of it

 

Whole-some Living

I’d like to share with you what I did this morning. It took some courage but left me feeling uplifted, inspired and sure of myself. After resisting the experience sharply, I eventually surrendered and took what I think is a big leap towards creating my dream self. Truly, it was nothing less than pure transformation.

 

I went to have my hair done.

 

Hopefully for most of you this is a relatively normal activity. But, for me, committing time, energy and money to having my hair done requires surrender, risk and a leap out my comfort zone to the extent that I can call it a spiritual experience. Not because I got high on the peroxide fumes or braved Sandton City on a Saturday morning, but because my story about who I am has excluded beauty for a long time.

 

For reasons that are too complex to mention beauty is an aspect of divinity that has never seemed to belong to me. I have an uncanny (and certainly not coincidental) knack of being surrounded by beautiful family, friends, and even my own sons, but I’ve never managed to own what was being reflected to me. So for a long time, I reacted to beauty the way many of us react to what we secretly want but think we can’t have. We make it wrong! It was much easier for me to call beautiful people superficial than to face my own sense of lack and much more convenient to label those girls who did embrace their beauty, sluts, rather than begin the sticky, scary journey of embracing my own.

 

So I worked hard to carve an identity that positioned itself as somewhat opposite to beautiful. I developed the serious, intellectual, spiritual side of myself so that beauty in relation would look frivolous and meaningless. But, of course, that lack of wholeness repeatedly comes back to bite me on the bum! In a reading this weekend, it was gently suggested to me that my struggle with marketing myself and my work is a direct reflection of my own firm belief that the content (the inner) is far more important than the packaging (the outer). Ouch! But, in the practical, playful tone that is characteristic of the readings, I was advised not to judge myself for that (mis)belief but instead to do something I’d secretly wanted to do for ages – and without guilt! That’s why I found myself spending the morning with my head under a dryer rather than under a book.

 

There are many ways to look at what aspects of yourself you’re suppressing. An obvious one is to observe the labels you most often put on yourself and consider what the opposite of that might be. Do you think of yourself as clever, middle-aged or spiritual? Perhaps you’re missing out on the benefits of being a little silly, youthful in your thinking, or commercially minded? A friend of mine exemplified this to me when she took some time out from her two-year-old to shop for shoes. She consciously looked for the pair of boots that seemed the most UNmother-like and she feels wild and sexy each time she puts them on.  Just for the sake of feeling that it was a good thing to do, but the value goes even beyond the feeling. Being in touch with that side of herself is going to be extremely useful as she embraces her fledgling career and needs a sense of toughness to draw on, or when she has to muster up the self esteem to speak out.  Most often, it is our repressed selves that hold the key to our next step in business, relationships or personal growth.

 

What small choice can you make this month to express who you think you are not? I guarantee you learning, liberation and a great deal of fun!

 

An angel in a packet of Kudu biltong

 

There were two funny, and humbling, synchronicities around today’s reading. Most of the reading was focused on inviting T to rest and ‘be soothed’, as she was trying to achieve a lot from a low base of energy, thereby exhausting herself. After the reading she told me that she had decided just last week, to rest and take some pressure off herself, as the focus for her month. Clearly she had sensed already what was in her highest interest, before even coming to a reading (it happens so often).

 

Right at the end of the reading, there was a small piece of practical advice to T – it would do you good to eat meat from game at the moment, she was told. It is very different from eating domestic animals, which are born to become produce, and will assist you to ground, but still remain light. Her smile was huge as she told me afterwards that on Friday her mum had given her a big packet of Kudu biltong…she already had what she was being invited to eat!

 

This raises four fascinating points for me:

 

·         Your higher self communicates to you all the time, not just through channels, or teachers or spiritual books. T had just felt like she needed to rest for a while and this was exactly what her higher self confirmed was in her best interests. As the readings always say – your desires are the signature of your divinity – there’s actually no need to look anywhere else (though admittedly the confirmation can be fun!)

·         Often we categorise things (and people for that matter) into what is ‘spiritual’ and ‘not spiritual’. So, for example, vegetarianism and Deepak Chopra fall into the former category and Coca-cola and Robert Mugabe into the latter. But here, in a reading (and it’s not the first time) someone is specifically being encouraged to eat meat. This is not to say that eating meat is therefore spiritual and we should all go out and do it for immediate enlightenment. It’s instead an indication that, inherently, everything has its ability to serve someone in some place at some time. Disregarding anything, or anyone, as unspiritual limits our ability to benefit from them.

·         T hasn’t always had an easy relationship with her mom and would probably not describe her as one of her teachers, yet she was the one who handed T the gift of something she really needs at the moment. Our learning, or gifts, or support can come in ANY package, through any person, even the least likely. Keep your eyes, eyes and heart open for where love is going to show up next….

·         And, lastly, I was reminded that you probably already have what you need right now.  

The alchemy of hate

The Alchemy of Hate

It’s hard to keep my mind on much else today, other than on the upsurge of horrific violence against foreigners in my very own city. In places just kilometers away from where I live and work people are being kicked out of their homes, looted, beaten and set alight for being ‘other’. The taxi rank and supermarket a few minutes’ walk from where I am right now, have just shut down hours early in anticipation of another afternoon of fire and hate. I’m feeling alternately numb and horrified.

Naturally there are a number of lenses through which to try to make sense of what’s being called xenophobic backlash (though I’m not convinced that’s what’s actually afoot). There are economic explanations, political explanations, cultural explanations, even bureaucratic explanations if you listen to the sagacity of Mamphele Ramphele. And on all those levels there also possible actions to take if, like me, you are feeling appalled and grief-stricken by mob behaviour that one can’t help but compare with the sniffing and snuffing out of Jews only 70 or so years ago, or our own local brand of apartheid for that matter. Things you can do to contribute include political lobbying, supporting newly-homeless folk by taking blankets, food, toiletries and water to police stations and making your voice heard in the press.

But more than that, I have to engage with this violence personally and spiritually. Although I myself can cringe at the esotericism of this approach, I trust deeply that the internal eventually becomes the external and therefore that’s where to go when treating the cause of the disease, and not just the symptoms. If the world is only ever a mirror of the self (which is why Gandhi famously suggested that to change the world we must become that desired change ourselves), then the actions we see around us (yes, even theft, murder and the like) belong to all of us. Rather than that disheartening me, it inspires me. At last I can contribute. At least I can be part of making a new reality, when just dropping off some blankets (which I have also done) doesn’t feel like enough

It’s easy (and probably natural) to focus our outrage and judgment on the people bearing the torches and tyres or those in power who’ve let it come this far. Yet, if we do, the place we are coming from is exactly the same one that they are – hatred and blame. More of this in our country, and our world, can not be the solution. So today I’ve been looking in myself for these two thugs that I see mirrored around me. Perhaps for you there are more striking reflections than hatred and blame, giving you another set of questions to raise, but for me, that’s where I’m starting to look.

Hatred

Is there anyone you feel justified to hate? BEE fat cats, the Chinese, the person who hijacked your car, the taxman, your boss, the government, paedophiles, your sister who got all the privileges, Robert Mugabe?

The emotion of hatred exists and therefore has value. Feeling it and expressing it healthily must be available to us (and perhaps part of our problem is an overly politically correct context) but the rot sets in when we feel justified to hate and to act on that hatred in any way we like. Unreachable as this sounds, the only way to create the world we’d like our kids (and ourselves) to live in, is if we never let ourselves justify a perpetual hatred. After all, if our hatred can be justified, then why can’t somebody else’s? Swearing at someone on TV and burning down a shack are just a few degrees of hatred apart.

I’m investigating at the moment whether I’m holding onto any hatred. It’s not an easy task because those of us who like to think we are educated and somewhat self-aware, presume that hatred is something rather outdated, an emotion for the ‘less developed’ along with things like, say, sloth and wrath. But after persistent searching, some of the places that I’m finding speckles of hatred are:

·         Where I regularly ridicule others (on TV, in newspapers, in conversations with friends)

·         Where my highest values get threatened e.g. people that send me hate-mail about my work (yes, really) or people who don’t think my children are the cutest, brightest, most beautiful angels ever to be humanly conceived (no, not really)

·         Where my social circle justifies hatred and I just slip into it (usually toward despotic, neurotic, psychotic or just plain stupid political leaders)

·         Where I transfer my hatred from an ‘unacceptable’ focus onto a more justifiable one (being angry at my husband instead of at my baby, shouting at the cat instead of the CEO of the medical aid scheme and so on)

·         Abstract areas of life – hating poverty, debt, ignorance, violence, mess, injustice and so on. Hating hatred, as I’ve already mentioned, keeps it alive and thriving.

Naturally it’s a little futile to examine all the external locations of our hatred without looking at the primary source, hatred of ourselves. I realise that sounds a little overdramatic, but I can’t tell you how many clients I have whose dream is to bring peace and healing to the world in one way or another, but feel quite justified to hate their own fear, addictions, body, habits, stuckness, inadequacies, secret desires or lack of clarity. How can we possibly transform hatred in the world if we are carrying it for ourselves?

Blame

Blaming illegal immigrants for the poverty, unemployment and women-lessness (yes, this is one of the major arguments) of some South Africans is (to me anyway) quite clearly a case of scape-goating. I found myself arguing vehemently with a friend today that the spate of attacks on foreigners was a case of locals being too loyal to the ruling party and finding another, less powerful, group of people to punish for the appalling conditions of their lives. During my convincing debate however, I realised that my own argument, just like that of the looting mob, was rooted in blame.

I’m not suggesting that people should never be held accountable nor face the consequences of their choices. But there is a difference between calling someone to book, and blaming them for your sorrows. And here’s the difference in a little example from my own life:

One of my husband’s few Extremely Irritating Sickening Habits (EISH) is spending hours on his computer upstairs. I regularly blame our untidy house, my small writing output, all our debt, my children’s dirty hair and anything else that concerns me on this. There is some legitimacy to my complaints, and just this evening we made a deal about some of the no-go times of day to be on the computer (bath-time, breakfast-time, during a fire and so on). Asking him to be accountable for chores that we share is one thing, but blaming him solely for Complaints A – D above, is an escape and one that can only leave me paralysed and resentful with no options for meaningful action. If the story you are telling yourself also leaves you in that position (or if the only action you can think of is torching someone’s home) then it’s highly likely you are blaming.

When (or maybe in present company I should be saying if J) you do encounter blame and hatred in yourself, the only way to heal it is, paradoxically, to love it better. (Or were you thinking that feeling hate and blame towards your hate and blame was gonna dismantle that hate and blame, huh?). Just the awareness of when and where it comes up for you, already dissolves it somewhat and if you’d like to take it further then have a conversation with that yucky (as my son would say) part of you until it feels heard and tells you why it is acting that way. We know that criticising and punishing a young child all the time only produces more undesirable behaviour, why don’t we practice that towards ourselves?

As we create more compassion in ourselves, it will spill over into our lives, and into the world at large. That’s the only way I know how to alchemise hate. 

 

 

Birthing pains

As I sit here writing my first blog (yes, I know I’m about a million years behind especially for someone who calls herself a writer) I do so with tears streaming down my face and a desperate urge to go and do anything else – ANYTHING ELSE – rather than face this blank screen (darning socks, anyone?). Hence the title of this first post, and the story of tonight.

With our two boys asleep wonderfully early, and a whole expanse of quiet time ahead, I set aside the night for reading The Passion Test (see www.thepassiontest.com). I have felt waves of gratitude all day. Brought on by ordinary things – as always – the autumn trees, the skin of my babies, even just the air today had me in the heady grip of gratitude. In states like that, the air feels a little thicker around me (like it does in readings) and I walk around with an inner smile as if I know a delicious secret. It was a day like that. And the connection got stronger when I started reading, so much so that I stopped, closed my eyes and listened.

My sense was that I am getting ready, that I’m about to bloom (even though it’s Autumn . I couldn’t shake my sense of anticipation, of things having shifted inside steadily to get me here. I pulled out my Bird Cards (beautiful, wonderful, new discovery www.birdcards.net) to get some insight on this excitement and how it would get channelled. I merrily chose my first card, expecting one of the majestic birds, or at least one associated with freedom, wealth  and harvesting. I pulled The Vulture.

Without even being aware of what The Vulture symbolises, I felt tears prick my eyes. Something raw and real was here, that was clear. I read the words already crying, learning that this bird transmutes shame into love and that it was time to acknowledge parts of myself of which I am ashamed. ’I don’t want to think about this, surely I’ve already dealt with this stuff’, but my crying, which had escalated into deep sobbing, showed otherwise.

I am ashamed of being a channel. I know that it’s a phenomenal vocation; I know that I am blessed with a developed ability (I don’t think of it as a gift) that lots of people would adore (and probably use better) and I know that the insight I can produce is astounding. But I am still ashamed of the ‘woo-woo’ stigma attached to it and of what intelligent and religious acquaintances will think of my career – I have specific people in mind and am quite sure I do them an injustice but still, there they are in my mind, the big, scary, hairy Council of Judges.

I am also ashamed of being thought of, or spoken about, as a know-it-all. The thought fills me with dread that actually produces nausea. As I sat on my bed looking at The Vulture, I felt revulsion at those parts of myself. (Seeing as my curiosity at language never switches off it seems, I had a delightful moment seeing that reVULsion and VULture are linguistically related!). When I imagined my inner Know-It-All self and got over how disgusting she was, I asked her what she wanted, knowing that I wouldn’t have that shadow side if it were not useful to me in some way. She very crossly told me that if she were just given a chance to be heard, she would shut up. Paradox being the signature of the divine, I totally got that and promised that i would start to share more of what she knew.

When my heart settled and the snot and trane trickled off, I pulled the next card. C’mon Blue Bird of Happiness! Instead, The Shrike. Now you should know that The Shrike and I go way back. If you have ever used the Bird Cards, you might know of the spread that can be done to learn about your Life Path and Life Work. They are two significant cards, that are yours to work with for the rest of your life (or at least that’s how they are to me). One of mine – Life Path – is The Shrike, showing that my path involves telling the truth even when that may be divisive, uncomfortable or unpopular. Like Jesus (depicted in the card), my concern should be with the truth above all else, regardless of my fear of being a know-it-all and that little persecution complex I’ve got going. So the Shrike strikes again. In facing up to my shame, owning who I am and expressing it, I will be using truth, and sometimes as a sword. Interestingly, it’s our two year old son’s birthday in two days and all he wants is a sword.

These two cards had painted a very clear and rich picture for me. I’m not such a fan of pulling cards all the time and often think that we give over our responsibility by doing so, but used consciously, they can open up internal knowledge for us that goes way beyond what the actual interpretation of the card might be. This is what had happened. I had gone to the cards carrying my sense of blossoming and expecting to have it confirmed, affirmed and amplified. That’s exactly what did happen, but by exposing the shame I have been carrying, not by acting as ra-ra cheerleaders. 

When I turned over my final card, I could only express my love in weeping (yes, again). The Goose is my Life Work card, that had partnered with The Shrike in the spread I mentioned earlier, and here she was again, speaking to me of the fact that my work would bring spiritual and material wealth if I could conquer the huge inner demon I was carrying. Both my permanent Life Path and Life Work cards had come up again together, after The Vulture. The message spoke so loudly that I had to get out of bed, come upstairs, ask my loving and long-suffering husband to teach me how to blog, and start my journey with words. 

 I’m glad to share it with you.

To take this into your own life:

• Have you been struggling to start something? An exercise routine, a search for a new job, a book?
• What is the pay-off, or value, you get from not doing it? Mine was this: if I don’t write or become more public about my work I won’t have to face up to being a channel and my fear of being called arrogant.
• Does your pay-off indicate some sort of shame you are carrying about yourself?
• If you give your shame a personality (see the work of Debbie Ford), what might it want to say to you?
• So how is your shame getting you closer to your Joy?
• Remember that birthing pains hold the promise of creation. Don’t numb them or hate them, they reveal a more beautiful self.