On Earth As It Is In Heaven

Here I am standing in the midst of my panic. I look out of my eyes and everything is altered. The clock has just struck thirteen! Insanity hovers. The room undulates, the real is unreal, the unreal is distorted reality. The pale green walls sway and darken. The cheerful curtains patterned with Eucalyptus leaves become cracks into another more sinister world, foetid vapours swirl around my legs, entrapping me in the stench of the old and not quite forgotten. The mists of my mind return me to the terrified little girl, desperately clutching at her mother’s skirts. Don’t let her go away and leave me! The outside world threatens with the unknown, the only thing which still has the force to frighten me.

I thought I had beaten panic. I’ve had it all my life, on and off. I’d developed a different strategy for living through it every time it has appeared. And I thought I had finished with it. It hasn’t bothered me for about twenty years, just in flashes, easily assimilated. I’d developed my latest way of dealing with it when living in Sweden. It used to sneak up on me, from the side behind my line of vision. I would begin by feeling uncomfortable, needled. I would be going about my daily chores in the community where I lived, frowning, screwing up my face, trying to shrug off something invisible, not quite in my mind yet. Then suddenly I would see it. I would gasp in surprise. “Oh this is just another one of these things!” I would say, and then I would look directly at it, this disturbance. “So where are we going with you today?” I would say, and immediately the feeling would change. The flap would be over and the frown would smooth out, a smile would return to my face. So many times I went through that procedure, I thought I had the measure of panic.

But here it is rearing out of control again. It doesn’t respond when I look at it and say “What are you up to this time?” It just gets worse day by day. My honesty is leading me nowhere, It seems to skirt around the edges of a truth which I can’t quite grasp.

I wake up in the mornings, my heart pounding, sweating, a tight band around my diaphragm, feeling I haven’t slept at all. High blood pressure, death by stroke, or worse, paralysis and a long life. My body is healthy, and could live long. My nervous system is beleaguered, too tired to move. Meditation gives me the only relief, and that transient.

I am a woman who has lived more than half her allotted lifespan. I have been a lover, a mother and have lived a long time alone. My career when I followed it was successful but I abandoned it to search for something deeper, a more elusive truth about life. I abandoned my marriage and religion for much the same reason, but never my children. They are scattered over the earth now, finding their own success, but still close to my heart. I am not endowed with physical beauty, or many physical possessions, but my spirit self creates beauty around me, gives me a patience and tolerance, a calmness and generosity which comes from years of silence, meditation, a reverence for nature and the habit of caring for others. I have been ruthless with my beliefs, retaining only those which enhance my life experience, and discarding those which produce limitation and guilt. That is an ongoing process, as beliefs subtly reveal themselves through life’s challenges, begging attention and dismantling in one’s handling of situations. I have the ultimate respect for myself as a being, as it is through the consideration and love of the self that I can serve all others.

My spirit dances with the wind through the red gums, twining gracefully with the great spirits of nature. Here I am unshackled, reflecting flowers, bathing in their perfume. I see myself performing aerial gymnastics, leaping from tree to tree, faster than the insects, more sure-footed than the birds. Then I spring back into my physical body, back to the flatfoot existence here on earth, plodding about, confined.

My physical self likes to wear bright clothes, unusual creations, deep dark blues and purples, highlights of gold and turquoise. I love soft mohair and brushed wool, fur lined boots and coats. Bright coloured stones in rings and necklaces. But on ordinary days I am indistinguishable in my T shirts and trousers. I have given away most of the possessions I had when my children lived with me. I like to live without clutter, simply. I meet my needs, and a bit more, but when possessions start to crowd me again, I take another load down to the op shop. I still enjoy the feel of my lips on my grandmother’s fine china cups, each delicately painted. Strong pictures on the walls. The Swedish forest is my home territory. Music I play all day long, favouring the overpowering passion of the human voice. I am orderly, with photographs and fresh flowers around my desk, a routine to follow each day, and no scruples when I occasionally leave it all and go out. I am in my centre, viewing the world as it spins around me, and radiating love to all within my sphere.

There are other times of course when stress clouds my spirit and I become lost in a maze of panic and uncertainty. The flowers in their vases fade, and my joy with them. Then I crave company and diversion. My mind sets up an incessant chatter, trying to delve into my feelings from its own limited perspective, trying to find the source of the malaise, to lift the anguish. And all the time I know I am chasing in vain circles, searching through illusion, but I can’t stop as the hunt gathers speed.

I’ve gathered many techniques for lifting myself out of panic. But it is a strange creature. Its heavy fog creeps over my body like a personoid, peering behind my ears, lifting my breasts, inspecting the crevices under my arms to see what is hidden there. I lie waiting for it, breathing deeply, watching its progress, accepting it into me, into the vast resources of the human spirit. Resistance is useless. Drugs merely cloud the issue. Acceptance and understanding the only tools. Panic swoops on every uncertainty and weaves its cocoon of false beliefs around them. It is a chameleon, changing its ways in harmony with its surroundings. It is never the same, and that is the reason my mind goes into the frenzied chase, searching out the new aspects of the current onslaught. It is the soul seeking expression. But the soul’s answer can also be elusive, and I must wait for the right moment, for its revelation of the new path.