Tally for the week

• 1 missed observation class
• 1 lesson in classroom management and learner levels
• 1 lesson in reading skills and
• 1 sliding door moment

Have you ever had a moment in which you observe the life you’re leading with greater clarity than normal?

As if a camera framed for a close-up pans back suddenly to show the bigger picture.

And in that picture you also get a glimpse of the person you might have been had you gone through a different door, down a different path.

That’s a sliding door moment.

This week in my TESOL class, I was pulling a text apart in order to identify cohesive devices (aka discourse markers). And it reminded me of the other thing I’m trying to pull apart – my professional life to find meaning

My understanding of meaningful work has its genesis in my family ideals of purpose and success. And in the past, when work opportunities appeared “out of the blue”, suddenly, as if in answer to a wish or a prayer, the process often felt part of a pre-destined plan – ie I was on the “right” path. The markers clear. 

That path and the bigger plan has changed though. I now make sense of things in a different way.

Residues of the old markers will always be there. Because  habits take time to change. The challenge is to know the difference between the accidental (or left-over markers) and the intended (or new markers).

So that when I pull apart the text of this hoped-for joyful, authentic life of mine, I’ll be able to identify the discourse markers that indicated a meaningful and honest connection with others and (please god!) a skilful contribution to the world. 

And then, if the door ever slides open again, I hope I can say, hand-on-heart that I ended up on the right road, simply because it was my road.

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A Natal chart shows the planets in each of the 12 houses governing our relationships, our careers, our family and our home etc. As a Libran coming up to a birthday this month, it was like listening to a report card at the end of term.

Am I doing well? Meeting my potential? Have things happened the way they should, the way he said they might? Is there anything in this science of the stars?

My own proclivity for things “other worldly” apparantly grows out of some innate skills I was born with – psychic and intuitive skills and a strong connection to higher learning or arcane wisdom. I believe these skills get a “kick along” as a result of events in life that skew, threaten or validate our belief system. Transforming events like marriages, like deaths, like separations, or fortuitous events that guide or help us further along the path and push us up or out to another level. Events that align us to a truer purpose or message.

Librans are all into alignment – we like to balance, straighten, organise and collaborate to get things right. There’s a bunch of us at work, all coming up for birthdays this month ( proof  that the traditional Christmas holidays, occuring 9 months before, are an annual festival of baby making across all generations).

Yesterday, I met with one of my fellow librans and 2 librarians to talk about a collaborative knowledge and research program using Wiki technology Our aim is to build on the information associated with one person and one event, so that the organisation creates a storehouse of connected ideas and stories, threaded together as knowledge.

Some spiritual practitioners believe there is compendium of arcane wisdom referred to as the Akashic Records. It is a warehouse of wisdom, life purpose, lessons and stories lived by the brave souls who trod the earth one day light years before and after us Yet, we get to tap into that shared wisdom through our dreams, through divination; they appear as flashes of insight, archetypal art and myth or random co-incidences and events of synchronicty.

I’ve always found Librarians to be a “higher form” in the workplace. I find them gentle, clever, kind, insightful and generous, in pursuit of truth and knowledge. There’s something noble about that pursuit.

Our librarians live in a glass library. Above the library a void reaches skyward, passing through, and surrounded by 3 floors of open-space-workstations, in other words, there are no walls anywhere.  Central to the building, the library is a testament to learning and education. In reality, these poor darlings who work beneath the void, are battling noise overload, as they sift  through the  brittle static and crackle that comes with worker conversations in the air above and around them.

So as I listened to the whirring crackling noises emanating from my car tape deck this morning, I sifted through the  information housed in this astrological reading. David, although a young man, has also died  in the ntervening years. And as his voice reached me over the air waves, making predictions based on my natal chart, I got a chill. Yes, he portentiously predicted the inevitable separation of a significant man in my life 11 years from the date of the recording. 

But in that whirring and crackling noise that accompanied this kind and encouraging reading, I realised we’re all connected in cycles, waves, sound, light, learning, truth and knowledge. The wisdom plays out through us, around us, in us and over us, again and again and again.

So to all my libran companians and all the splendid teachers and wise librarians in the world, may your road be wide and long and bring you home safely and wiser for the journey you’re on.

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I agreed to talk at a conference about organisational change communications. As last speaker of day one, I became increasingly more nervous as the day wore on. I compared myself (unfavourably of course) to every speaker who went before me. These were General Managers, Goverment CEOs, Directors and Managers. These were national and international organisations of thousands of staff, with publics in the tens of thousands.  Way out of my league.

What had the organisers been thinking when they asked me to tell our simple story?  All day, I tweaked my narrative, adding bits, taking bits off, giving it a different angle, only to change it again once another speaker finished their glamorous and interesting story. I had nothing! And I was about to be humiliated with mass walk-outs and dismissive smirks,  I could see it happening right before my eyes.

With no alternative but to push ahead, I settled on a simple story from the heart, a few humorous annecdotes and some well-timed self-deprecating insights. I got through the talk, dry-mouth and all. Why I even made them laugh. So I guess it worked. People told me (as they always do when queuing up behind you at the drinks counter) that they enjoyed it. And that it was the sort of story people like to hear at these conferences. But even that didn’t make it better.

That night, in my room, I cried myself to sleep. Partly from stress relief, partly  because I missed Bloke as he wasn’t there to comfort me, and partly because I’d drifted so far away from my own core beliefs and values that I felt a fraud.  But what message  would have helped me sleep soundly that night; and what would make me proud of using my gifts and talents to reach out to people again.

The Saturday before this conference I was getting my hair cut and coloured. And in the seat beside me was a woman whose 5 year old daughter was playing at her feet. For over an hour, this child amused herself with curlers and whetever other salon paraphenalia appealed. I watched with delight this creative, engaging, resilient, funny, affectionate, never-clingy, never-demanding, great kid.

I commented to the mother how impressed I was. The child’s “in your face” style reminded me of someone, and as I watched her it took sometime for me to realise that she reminded me of myself at that age. Like this child, I was always going up to strangers, talking to them, even sitting on their lap on the bus. It was a family joke, that I had no fear barometer and was too friendly for my own good.

As the similarities occured to me, in my mind’s eye, I fast-tracked this child’s life and informed the mother that she had “an actress on her hands.”, the mother laughingly agreed, and as if, on cue, the strangest thing then happened.

This child of 5 looked at me and asked if the baby in my tummy was ready to be born. I laughed and told her that there was no baby there – just fat. I looked down expecting to see the tell-tale roll of fat on show, but realised I was wrapped up in a salon tent-like sheath, covering me from neck to mid-calf. Without a pause, the child climbed under my hairdresser’s shroud, to curl up on my lap where she began to loudly whimper like a baby. With no other alternative - and in shock I guess- I patted this tiny form and coaxed a psychodramatic birthing. And with the precision timing that comes with a short term memory, a minute later this baby-child slid out from under the sheath, to land right at my feet. 

I laughed at the time, and assured the nervous mother that it was all good fun, as it had been. But it’s only now, a week later, and following the insights I’d gleaned from the conference presentations, I realise this little guru had come with a message.

What landscape had I traversed since being 5 years old and how much had I forgotten of my true nature? Was it time to give birth to some reincarnated creativity? Re-kindle the first principles of my courageous nature. Could I remember the fun and drama of being 5? Would that be my message – to grab at those precious moments when they come and say yes! Now I’m not suggesting we sit on strangers’ laps to be born again in front of them, but for me, I needed just that.

I needed to remember the world is a comforting place not a frightening one.  And the baby inside of me, that child who survived the most awful event of all, a mother’s death, can survive all sorts of mini-deaths and changes life produces. In front of an audience or not. It’s actually not about me, but about the messages I’ve learnt on the way.

‘So if we find our feet on firm or shaky ground, we just need to get out of the way . Only then will stuff start to happen. And despite us, people will hear the message they’re meant to hear and meet the teachers they’re meant to meet.

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