Dear All,

This is hoping you have had a good holiday or break.

I thought it was most amusing that I sent out a ‘hello’ in ‘error’ to a few of you on my mailing list and received more replies than when I send  it out with a message. Thank you to the many who responded! Good to hear from you. Less is obviously more... But now of course, I am about to write ‘more’...

Some of you may know that I am now working part-time in a rehab clinic. A  rather inebriated lady grabbed hold of my scarf and stared into my eyes with deep anger and said ‘you’ve had botox. I can tell you’ve had botox!’ I decided this was a deep compliment and maybe the only visible result of years of meditation. Working in rehab confirms to me too that behind the greatest despair lies the greatest compassion. I was listening to a programme on Mother Teresa and it said that she felt ‘the dark night of the soul’ for most of her time in India and that she didn’t ‘feel’ God at all. She then realized that was the same as feeling ‘his’ presence. She came to realize it wasn’t a contradiction but a communion – that the darkness was the reverse aspect of her work and that ‘God’ was present equally in the light as in the darkness. It’s not like it’s the dark at the depths of the earth but that of a cloudy night where there’s a subdued hidden light. I found that interesting and so pass on her view.

And lastly, the other conviction I increasingly feel, which you all know of course, is that everything changes- therefore however bad the problem, it will come to an end. And sadly, the same applies to the good stuff. Freedom definitely comes from clinging to neither...

On that note, and thank you for reading (if you still are!), and do comment back, please do come to one of the next two workshops. The last ones have been well attended and it is always an honour to ‘run a day’ full of people determined to let go of negative patterns. Thank you.

Caroline