When the student is ready August 20, 2008
Posted by Liz Mead in The journey.Tags: Catholic, journey, personal blocks, religion, spirit
2 comments
I was side-swiped this month by a talk with one of my acquaintances.
I work with this person. She and I have similar interests and insights. We’ve read the same books and have similar approaches to the importance of spirit in our life.
She loves and teaches stories, she is a writer and an editor, a seeker, committed to re
lationship building and a Libran. She also has a Catholic background and recently lost her father whom she cared for deeply.
Like me, she believes that the path of the heart is all encompassing and when all is said and done, it is love that resounds and remains at the end of life. I believe, though that she is farther along the path than me and a little clearer on what that tenet actually means in day-to-day life. She is courteous and gentle; a great listener and very thoughtful in her care of others.
When she told me yesterday that she followed a guru in her spiritual practice I had a puzzling and negative reaction. And that worries me.
Despite the fact that we shared so many other interests I didn’t want to hear that she had handed over personal power to another. I find the choice of a guru akin to deifying another and this has never sat well. As I’ve done in the past, I dismissed the path as a possible method to find meaning and enlightenment.
What worries me is that I have no realistic alternative and no real reason for rejecting the path she’s chosen other than fear and confusion. Don’t get me wrong, I want to reach enlightenment along with the next person. Her path however, is dependent on trust and love – and that scares me.
When I went to India 10 years ago I sought the spiritual home I thought I needed. I was on a quest to find meaning and resonance. I had dreamt of gurus, met practitioners, read books, prayed and received confirming indicators that indeed this place and its spiritual practices would provide a place of rich sustaining support. Alas it provided noise, dirt, stress and crowds. I couldn’t see past the smells and confusion. As for inner sight I was lucky to maintain my sanity keeping an eye out for fast moving traffic and bullocks in the middle of the road. I was deeply disappointed and decided I had no spiritual bone in my body.
Besides, I had my darling husband as an alternative ‘religion’. He was my path to the heart. He was my divine other. It was enough. It was real and trustworthy. But it ended. Now without him I am rudderless and back to square one. Still sightless and a little the worse for wear; love might be the thing that matters in life, but it gets stripped away in the surety of death.
The sustaining truth from all of this, though, is that change is the other great constant in life; change in death; change in jobs; change in friends. And that the harbingers of change in my life invariably arrive with a baton – passing on a new curriculum of learning just before its time to move. This new friend brings with her the next list of subjects I am to study. When the student is ready, the teacher appears. In this case with she comes with a lesson plan: advising me to attend to the moment, to stay awake and to remember that for a seeker, the path doesn’t end.
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time, T S Eliot
When in Milan June 24, 2008
Posted by Liz Mead in The journey.Tags: change, Italy, journey, myth, tarot, travel
1 comment so far
This is my last post for this journey overseas and as such there is a need to make it significant or full of insight. Alas with those compelling needs it might fail. If Ekhart Tolle could hear me - he’d remind me to live in the now and forget what you need or want. Just enjoy now.
The trip has been extraordinary; brilliant new vistas, challenges, laughs, delights, colours, smells and a light that is completely different to the one in Australia - home.
Milan is the last stop on this 7 week trip. I chose it for a number of reasons - not least among them was the fashion and the architecture, Castello Visconti-Sforza and of course, La Scala. Well I have 
seen sooooooo much architecture including some fabulous Art Deco and Art Nouvea balconies and iron work. I have been overwhelmed by the heat! frescos, statues, reliefs, mosaics, bells,cafes, good looking men, chapels, basilicas and the duomo which takes your breath away on first sight.
I have tried on every bit of outlet-worthy-last-season’s-oh-why-have-I-let-myself-get-this-fat piece of clothing;have walked every bit of shopping street,corso,via known to black belt shoppers:have worked the metro to within an inch of its red,yellow and green directions, and have found a few pieces that I will look at and sigh - Oh Milan.
One day I journeyed one hour away from gorgeous Milan to the small town of Bergamo. I was on a mission, to find and see the Visconti Tarot deck, which was, I understood in the care of the conservators at Acadamia Carrarar. I went up and down, in an out, around and about Bergamo on a gruelling 32 degree day, crossing bridges, climbing to forts at the top of the hill and ceremoniously saying good bye to Blokey, and then reaching finally the museum only to discover it was closed for renovations (for 2 years).
Having this disappointing sign translated word for word by a charming Italian, I traversed yet another 
knee breaking hill to find the palazzo de Regina (the temporary home of the academia collection) was also under renovation. I was so despondent I cried.
Just a bit, because someone was playing Ave Maria on the Flute outside the Basilica Maria di Maggiore. How can you be sad? On a beautiful day, in a beautiful town when that happens?
Remembering Gabbie’s and Cate’s advice not to get attached, and realising how many other fabulous places were yet to be discovered, I stopped that course of thought, dusted myself off and planned the next adventure to take place back in Milan.
Now those that know me, know the passion I have held dear (more than any other) has been the threatre. I went off to la Scala to be delighted by a view from a box, a tour of Callas’ wardrobe and memorabilia from this remarkable place of dreams and music. And to my great delight and surprise I saw some tarot cards (collected from the theatre stalls over many years). The only Arcana card - the judgement card from the Marseilles deck- smiled back up at me from behind the Scala museum collection; as if to say, Be surprised by life, now that you have made the right decision to move on with things.
The Judgement card has an image of people being called up and out of open graves (for the last judgement). Most pictures I’ve seen of this card, shows the dead to be quite chipper, having been dormant for so long.
So there you have it. I got my Tarot message after all, that it is good to move on and let the dead bury the dead. Blokey would want that for sure. I also got to see so many more things than I would have - because I had an intention to try as hard as I did and to hope and to care and to be disappointed (so take that Tolle!).
And, I got to see Milan in all its size 8 splendour. And if I don’t fit into drop dead tiny Italian state of the art fashion, do I care? You bet your size 14 arse I do! But that’s up to me to change and let go of that extra baggage.
Ciao Milan and thanks
