Chapter 7
So many things that were lost have come round again. Long
ago I prayed for fine weather for a beach mission. Because of the work of the
Findhorn Community and others, I accept that there are spirits in nature. These
are my friends. They live in my garden and help it to grow. Many times have
they responded to my requests for fine weather. Once, just so they could prove
it, I had cycled to work in the dry, and I had only been in the office for a
matter of seconds when an absolute deluge descended. I could not write a book
of this sort without mentioning my friends.(1) Perhaps here I shall write of the joy and
pleasure I have experienced in reading books by witches, I mean those of the right hand path. There is often a deep
humility in such books, as well as closeness to nature and poetry in the
expression of spirituality, and experience of working on the subtle levels.
Humility as I see it, has nothing to do with feeling, saying or believing that
you are no good, and everything to do with working with every aspect of your
nature as effectively as you can.
In 2005 I moved to Yorkshire. Here I was able fully to put into practice certain ideas concerning management which I had developed and tested in the doldrums years. Obviously the staff with whom I work are of equal status with me. I might be a superior in organisational terms, but in no other sense. I accept my position wholly, but exercise it with a light touch. I know how I hated it when my superiors told me what to do, when I was keen already to do whatever I was asked. I wanted to do a good job as it was, and gained satisfaction from so doing. I did not need external motivation. I wondered whether my staff felt the same way.
For the benefit of the entire business world, I report that this worked extremely well. Morale was up. Efficiency was up. The atmosphere was very attractive to work in. My staff found their motivation within themselves. They responded magnificently in times of pressure. They needed no motivating in order to reach targets, but reached and surpassed them themselves. They could also manage the ancillary jobs, and see for themselves when they had to be done. All staff felt valued, for they were valued very highly, and relations between them could not have been better. Backbiting, jealousy, tale telling and pettiness were unknown. When we lost someone because of promotion or college or any other reason, there was a real sadness and sense of loss. Whenever another person joined the team, she was quickly welcomed by the others and by me, and became fully productive in no time. We wanted to have meals together fairly often, and this is what we did.
In short, I delegated to them the power to do their jobs, just as my superior delegated to me the power to manage the team. And at no time did I feel out of control. At no time did I hide anything from my superior, or ignore what she said. I was surprised at the magnitude of the success. If there was an issue in the team which was too deep to fathom, I would brood upon it, and let the spiritual resources have sight of it as it were, but this was rare. Normally the life of the team was expressed in its working in the present moment in all its richness.
As thoughts are things, and as they radiate, my current gentle discipline is to be cheerful as often as I can. It is more enjoyable than the alternative! If I am miserable, like as not I have forgotten who I am. If I get offended, I certainly have. If I am anxious about money, I am falsely asserting that the earth is not the Lord’s and the fullness thereof.(2) Once, driving behind someone who was going slowly, and speeding up a little, then slowing again, speeding, slowing, I experienced a shallow anger of fearful intensity called road rage. Then I asked myself which was the more accurate statement about God, what I had radiated, or “Unresting, unhasting and silent as light?” (3)
The longest circle, or retrieval of what was in abeyance, has been for me to join the Quakers again. Here is a spiritual community, here is a regular opportunity to experience the depths together with others, here is simplicity, here is worship in Spirit and in truth, here is what the Renewal days promised but could not deliver on a week by week basis, here is power indeed, as much as in any Renewal day, but free from Evangelical theology and from any particular music style, and I have participated in it, I have been a part of the meeting where it happened. I have come home, and set out at the same time.
I had another hypnotic regression. I was directed to a corridor with doors. There were many doors. One resonated. “What is the feeling?” “Grr” “Grr is good”. I was a girl, dark skinned, in the Caribbean somewhere. I was happy. Brought forward in time I was in the vilest slavery. The feeling was of oppression and stench. We were kept for sex. I didn’t feel that the sex was too bad in itself. It was the slavery that stank to high heaven. Brought forward again, I was dying in a hut. I was barely 20 years old. I do not know what I was dying of. Asked for a date I pulled 1610 out of the air.
Another completed circle is the attendance at a Pentecostal church. Here I have remedied the mistake I made with the gift of tongues. This is used organically in the weekly prayer meeting. I even received a workable meaning for communion, being the life and power of God flowing round his body.
I have participated in setting up a healing group based on the insights of Jim Pym. Healing is found in the fullness, so that is where we operate. We do not plead in anguished lack. He accepts our ignorance. He says that acceptance makes a space in which the Holy Spirit can work.
I exchanged my cello for a square piano by Broadwood and had it expertly restored. Now I can play things I have been trying to play for 40 years. Many circles are closing in this.
Gnosis is none other than level seven, and is achieved with a light heart. Goodness and effort have nothing to do with it. Presumption is a powerful aid. Thérèse of Lisieux was asked as a child whether she wanted this or that present. She said “I’ll have the whole lot.” It is available to all human beings, because they are human, not because they adhere to any particular creed. The kingdom of heaven is within. And this means, of course, that the feeling that we are insignificant grains of dust blown about by every economic, military and political wind, which is so easy to feel in our age, is not based on fact. Rather, despite all appearances, it is the individual who is supremely important. And so, like Gilbert and Sullivan in The Gondoliers, I leave you with feelings of pleasure.
1. Evangelicals do not need to worry that I have turned my back on God even were this possible, for you turn your back on God and you find you are facing Him just the same. Whose ministers are they? They will certainly have been involved in the clearing of the clouds on Angelsey. Perhaps if you have business at one level of an organisation, you relate to the beings at that level, and do not necessarily route everything through the Managing Director.
2. 1 Corinthians 10:26
3. Hymn: Immortal, Invisible, God only wise: W Chalmers Smith
In 2005 I moved to Yorkshire. Here I was able fully to put into practice certain ideas concerning management which I had developed and tested in the doldrums years. Obviously the staff with whom I work are of equal status with me. I might be a superior in organisational terms, but in no other sense. I accept my position wholly, but exercise it with a light touch. I know how I hated it when my superiors told me what to do, when I was keen already to do whatever I was asked. I wanted to do a good job as it was, and gained satisfaction from so doing. I did not need external motivation. I wondered whether my staff felt the same way.
For the benefit of the entire business world, I report that this worked extremely well. Morale was up. Efficiency was up. The atmosphere was very attractive to work in. My staff found their motivation within themselves. They responded magnificently in times of pressure. They needed no motivating in order to reach targets, but reached and surpassed them themselves. They could also manage the ancillary jobs, and see for themselves when they had to be done. All staff felt valued, for they were valued very highly, and relations between them could not have been better. Backbiting, jealousy, tale telling and pettiness were unknown. When we lost someone because of promotion or college or any other reason, there was a real sadness and sense of loss. Whenever another person joined the team, she was quickly welcomed by the others and by me, and became fully productive in no time. We wanted to have meals together fairly often, and this is what we did.
In short, I delegated to them the power to do their jobs, just as my superior delegated to me the power to manage the team. And at no time did I feel out of control. At no time did I hide anything from my superior, or ignore what she said. I was surprised at the magnitude of the success. If there was an issue in the team which was too deep to fathom, I would brood upon it, and let the spiritual resources have sight of it as it were, but this was rare. Normally the life of the team was expressed in its working in the present moment in all its richness.
As thoughts are things, and as they radiate, my current gentle discipline is to be cheerful as often as I can. It is more enjoyable than the alternative! If I am miserable, like as not I have forgotten who I am. If I get offended, I certainly have. If I am anxious about money, I am falsely asserting that the earth is not the Lord’s and the fullness thereof.(2) Once, driving behind someone who was going slowly, and speeding up a little, then slowing again, speeding, slowing, I experienced a shallow anger of fearful intensity called road rage. Then I asked myself which was the more accurate statement about God, what I had radiated, or “Unresting, unhasting and silent as light?” (3)
The longest circle, or retrieval of what was in abeyance, has been for me to join the Quakers again. Here is a spiritual community, here is a regular opportunity to experience the depths together with others, here is simplicity, here is worship in Spirit and in truth, here is what the Renewal days promised but could not deliver on a week by week basis, here is power indeed, as much as in any Renewal day, but free from Evangelical theology and from any particular music style, and I have participated in it, I have been a part of the meeting where it happened. I have come home, and set out at the same time.
I had another hypnotic regression. I was directed to a corridor with doors. There were many doors. One resonated. “What is the feeling?” “Grr” “Grr is good”. I was a girl, dark skinned, in the Caribbean somewhere. I was happy. Brought forward in time I was in the vilest slavery. The feeling was of oppression and stench. We were kept for sex. I didn’t feel that the sex was too bad in itself. It was the slavery that stank to high heaven. Brought forward again, I was dying in a hut. I was barely 20 years old. I do not know what I was dying of. Asked for a date I pulled 1610 out of the air.
Another completed circle is the attendance at a Pentecostal church. Here I have remedied the mistake I made with the gift of tongues. This is used organically in the weekly prayer meeting. I even received a workable meaning for communion, being the life and power of God flowing round his body.
I have participated in setting up a healing group based on the insights of Jim Pym. Healing is found in the fullness, so that is where we operate. We do not plead in anguished lack. He accepts our ignorance. He says that acceptance makes a space in which the Holy Spirit can work.
I exchanged my cello for a square piano by Broadwood and had it expertly restored. Now I can play things I have been trying to play for 40 years. Many circles are closing in this.
Gnosis is none other than level seven, and is achieved with a light heart. Goodness and effort have nothing to do with it. Presumption is a powerful aid. Thérèse of Lisieux was asked as a child whether she wanted this or that present. She said “I’ll have the whole lot.” It is available to all human beings, because they are human, not because they adhere to any particular creed. The kingdom of heaven is within. And this means, of course, that the feeling that we are insignificant grains of dust blown about by every economic, military and political wind, which is so easy to feel in our age, is not based on fact. Rather, despite all appearances, it is the individual who is supremely important. And so, like Gilbert and Sullivan in The Gondoliers, I leave you with feelings of pleasure.
1. Evangelicals do not need to worry that I have turned my back on God even were this possible, for you turn your back on God and you find you are facing Him just the same. Whose ministers are they? They will certainly have been involved in the clearing of the clouds on Angelsey. Perhaps if you have business at one level of an organisation, you relate to the beings at that level, and do not necessarily route everything through the Managing Director.
2. 1 Corinthians 10:26
3. Hymn: Immortal, Invisible, God only wise: W Chalmers Smith