As my own wee clock turns to 49 today I am completely overwhelmed
by kind messages and now find myself in the position of having to use this blog
to say thank you for fear that I will miss someone out. I seem to have acquired an enormous amount of
new friends during 2013 and everyone has been so kind to message me on my
birthday. I confess that I am not very
good at receiving. I am much more
comfortable giving and I get very emotional receiving kindness. The thought and care that my children have
taken with my day is simply beyond words and it will take some time to sit with
me. I guess they are getting to an age
when they want to say their own messages and I just wasn't ready for that. When four hearts turn and beat as one towards
you it is completely overwhelming but I will treasure that feeling the rest of
my life.
As the wind continues to batter our small island I am having a
quiet day again so my family brought my birthday to me. I have also had some time to respond to the
many messages about my post yesterday about closing doors quietly. 2013 has seen me involved in so many projects
and I always try to commit totally to everything I do. If I am honest letting so much go all at once was tough But I instinctively knew it
to be necessary. Earlier this yea,r I
took a four week sabbatical to restore my health and I learnt so much from that
experience. It reminded me about what is
important in life and it also reminded me that things can work perfectly fine
without any contribution from me. More
than that though, as I think somethings work better once I have closed the door
quietly.
My lovely Tibetan teacher died this year but before he did he
told me something very important in his last few days. He told me that I had reached a stage in my life
when I needed to start understanding my place.
He believed that my place is to set good things in motion but once they
are running smoothly it is time for me to leave. In this leaving I create new space to set up
new things that need some attention. I
found this incredibly difficult to hear because I have not been good at walking
away from anything. Once I make a
commitment I tend to stay put. Over time
he convinced me that that is not my calling.
He believed my place in this world is about seeing what needs to be done
and then putting things in motion. It is
then for others to drive while I roll onto the next thing. No matter which way you look at this it
presents challenges and I have taken almost four months to digest it. I had sensibly asked if this rolling forward
meant closing the door on everything and everyone and his answer was
interesting. He said ' if I am to answer
as a man I would say no but you need to keep your inner circle very small so
you can give them what they might need.'
This seemed fair enough. However,
he then said 'if I am to answer as a buddhist monk I would say yes because I
can see a place for you deep within the buddhist community where your reach
could be much greater.'
You can imagine my reaction to that but I did understand the
different positions. If I apply his
logic to Scottish island mum I can see how the reach can be extended while
still retaining a small but very important inner circle. My dharma over the last two years has led me
to a place where helping others is the most important thing I do and I will
always be grateful for those teachings.
But my life time involvement in education has given me something worth
sharing and there comes my connection with my international charity work.
Four months on and as my children brought my birthday to me in
such a thoughtful and kind way I can finally make complete sense of his
teachings. I can tell you, quite
honestly, that I even felt my teacher by my side as all the pieces of the
puzzle made sense. My role as a mother
is my world and from that I can take the strength necessary to help
others. This may seem obvious to you but
when you are wrapped up in so many projects those tangled strands serve to
confuse the message. So, I hope that
people I have had to leave will understand that it is time for Scottish island
mum to move forward and test my destiny as my buddhist teacher saw it. Knowing me as you do it has occurred to me
that he might be wrong so I am keeping a very close eye as I make some very
radical changes to my life.
I know from many of your messages that many of you believe in
paths that cross but my dharma has convinced me of a different route. My route is not about those momentary crosses
but it is, I believe, about walking as lightly and quietly as possible in a
straight line peppered with moments when I walk beside someone for a short
while. Call it soul walking with
others. But you just know that beside my
water bottle in my rucksack are my family.
Until tomorrow. Xx
