“There is only one way and that is your way. You seek the path? I warn you away from my own. It can also be the wrong path for you. May each go his own way. I will be no saviour, no lawgiver, no master teacher unto you. You are no longer little children...May each seek out his own way. The way leads to mutual love in community. Men will come to see and feel the similarity and commonality of their ways”.
- The Red book - CG Jung
Meeting my Spiritual Guide
I began meeting a “Spiritual Guide”, and by this I mean, that these meetings were visions of my imagination, and not a real person. The messages from my Guide, served as a calming effect on my life, and helped me through a crisis which lasted intensely for about two years, and then slowly faded away. My Guide helped me through the gig economy and about 5 months after our first meeting, I was offered a job (I did not go searching for it) and on top of that, it turned out to be my dream job.
My Guide helped me to maintain that job, as I was under the illusion at the time that once I had a job, I could relax and all would be well. This was very far from the truth. Once I got the job I had to deal with my lack of office skills, the office politics, office jealousies, overwork, long hours, and an intensive learning curve. I was sixty at that time and as a freelance creative woman this was my first “normal nine to five job.” It was never nine to five, but rather nine to an hour way past my normal dinner or bed time. Nevertheless I put my head down and made the best of it for many years. I loved the job, wove myself into its fabric, and attached my identity to it.
On my first day in the office, I laughed out aloud which quickly shrivelled into a nervous giggle when I saw rows of people, sitting at black desks, and staring at their computers. It was the first time I had been into a corporate office, and I thought how funny everyone looked; like docile cattle feeding at their trough. Little did I know then, how much chewing of the cud I would be doing at those long black desks over the years to come.
The first time we met
My spiritual Guide never had a name, and always appeared in a backdrop of beautiful desert-scapes, undulating golden hills, small dunes, oases, palm trees, horses, goats, dogs, birds, lakes, sunrises, and a climate that was never too hot nor too cold. Sometimes he would appear on his horse, who I would feed carrots to, and he would always bring me gifts and messages.
The first time I encountered him, I was doing something that I did not normally do: lying on my bed in the afternoon and trying to sleep, because I had been so stressed and suffering from too many burdens. I was in a half-wake state, just coming out of short nap, when I had a vision of him. I kept these visions a secret because I didn’t want anyone to know and judge me, and I knew their judgement would not be favourable. My life seemed to have burst out from its unconsciousness, and I started to have a sense of ”knowing.” This took the form of knowing about the true motivation of people, and having a feeling of what would be happening next in my life and the lives of others. This was not always a happy state to be in, because I was forced to question what “reality” was, and what was not, and was the “seen” real and was the “unseen” real as well? I had to live with this question and try to sort it out myself. It was not something I wanted to discuss with anybody. At the same time I noticed that after meeting my Guide the “outer world” of my life became easier; my financial position stabilised, I moved to better apartment and I could feel that some of my deep anxieties and worries were slowly sloughing off.
It became clear to me, that having a Spiritual Guide is not a light thing, where you are bathed in the balm of everlasting joy, but rather that I was being pushed to find my own way. And I knew, although I did not want to accept it, that I had to find my own voice and that I would not find it in Key note speakers, Youtube channels, expensive “spiritual” courses, God, doctrines, self-help books, meditation groups, and the words from others. I had to have my own words and the realisation of this, left me feeling empty, because I thought I had nothing inside. I was like the desert in which I met my Spiritual Guide, and it confronted me, especially as I was never comfortable in deserts and had no fascination for them.
There was a bleakness in that desert landscape where I met with my Guide every day, and only much later after about 2 years did an oasis appear as well as buildings and trees and animals. Only when I could look back over time did I begin to understand the symbolism of that desert. I also tried to write about meeting my Guide and his messages, but my writing was so over charged with emotion and repetition as I struggles to make sense of that period of my life, and I soon abandoned the futile task.
What did he look like?
He was a dark man, in his forties, with a lined, sculptured face, high cheek bones, and beautiful aquiline nose. He laughed a lot, had strong white teeth and wore the blue traditional dress worn by the Tuaregs in North Africa. He stood with a straight back and held his head elegantly turning it towards me with the grace and flexibility of a ballet dancer. I always waited for him at a large rock, in the desert as the sun rose. I would see him coming towards me on his horse, and I would hear the pounding of his horse’s hooves, getting louder as he became more visible. Sometime he rode a white horse and other times a dark brown horse.
His horses were always decorated with beautiful fabrics and colourful bridles and saddles. I would often ride with him, sitting behind him on the saddle, thrilled at the sense sense of freedom as I felt the power of his horse and the speed in which we miraculously and effortlessly raced across the desert. He was an “ethereal man” and I had never met anyone who resembled him, nor had I met a Berber before and I have never had any desire to travel across the Sahara desert either. He was foreign to me, and I did not have fantasies about him, nor did I desire him in anyway.
What I wore and what he said
To my astonishment, I found myself dressing for our first meeting in a dress made from bubble wrap. It tapered down to my ankles with tight neat darts and pleats inserted at the back to shape and hug my body. My waist was further accentuated by a wide, silver band of electrical tape and I wore pointed ankle boots made from shining black recycled plastic. I waited next to a large rock in a desert, and could feel drops of sweat trickle down inside the bubble wrap. From the distance I heard the sound of a horse’s hooves, battering the earth at full gallop, like a metronome to my beating heart.
Suddenly he was there. The strangest thing was that I recognised him, but could not think from where. He greeted me with a smile, and I remember that he had such good teeth, each tooth a pearl of dental health and he had kind mouth. This unconsciousness recognition of him was important because it enabled me to relate to him, and in doing so, I could begin to integrate his presence into my life. I had no plan for this, and it wasn’t always pleasant because the realisation that I would have to change my attitude to life, stressed me more than the joy of seeing him. He pushed me into a process which I gradually became aware of much later on. The setting of our meetings were nearly always the same, only my dress differed, the bridle of his horse and the beautiful gifts that he bestowed on me.
He gave me a silver silk pouch which he held out towards me in his hands. I noticed that it coordinated perfectly with the silver insulating tape of my belt as I untied the silver chord around the pouch and opened it. There nestling within, lay a piece of gold jewellery, a pendant, which had been fashioned into the number five. It was about 3mm thick, and the size of the palm of my hand. At the bottom of the golden five, in its smooth curve, hung five small gold disks, each disc encrusted with the tiniest brilliant stones that twinkled in the sunrise as a celebrating to the dawn.
The only thing he said to me on that first day was: “Go your own way and you will be OK.” I didn’t know how to reply and shortly after that, our meeting ended.
The gift of the number five
Afterwards, I focused on the meaning of the number five, and not on the “go your own way” which was the real message. I immersed myself in the symbolism of the number five, and one reference lead to others as I stayed up for many nights well past midnight, absorbing and learning; there are the five books of the Torah, five Books of Moses” the five pillars of Islam, David collected five smooth stones to defeat Goliath, the pentagrams, the five faces of Shiva, the smallest prime number, the impact of the number five in all things scientific, artistic, and philosophical, and the pentad etc.
I always researched the gifts he gave me, not only a google search, but hours in libraries in Zurich, where I lived at that time. About six months later I understood that the five was in fact, a “unit of time” because five months after our first meeting I had crawled out of the gig economy and into a new job, with a stable income and had moved to a better apartment. It all happened within five months.
The leperello
The meetings with my Guide helped me to clear away the wreckage of my knee-jerking negative thinking and at the same time sought to clarify the vision I had of my future, which until then was only a blur on a distant horizon. I started documenting our meetings in a Moleskin leperollo books, which looked like an accordion when you opened them up. Some time later I would fix several of these books to the ceiling where they would cascade down to the floor in their panels, looking like an art installations.
On the first page of the first book (there are 17 books) I wrote in bold capital letters “Go your own way and you will be OK” and then drew the golden number five piece and the five small gold, jewelled discs hanging from it.
I never had any conversations with my Guide. There was no Q&A, channeling, or meaningful delivery on philosophy or Spiritual matters and no instructions. He gave me gifts in the from of symbols and it was up to me to identify their meaning and to try discover their relevance to my life.
Connecting
I could only connect with my Guide when I was alone and this connection with him, did not involve any meditation, special breathing, fasting or yoga. I just connected and experienced a stillness when I did, which was usually on the tram, going to work. I had my phone in my hands and I would type into a file on my phone the important details of our meeting. Later that day or evening when I knew I would have half an hour without interruptions I would transcribe what he said, into the leperello book and make a drawing of the gifts he had given to me that day.
I often reflected that the desert in which we met was probably symbolic of the emptiness of my own interior, and that my Guides words; “Go your own way” were so difficult for me. This was mainly because I had been a follower of others who were on “their own way” and I felt it my task to enable them to better things, a better life and achieve success. So the idea that I could actually have “my own way” was uncomfortable for me. I learnt that there was no “to-do list,” courses, “7 steps to follow” to achieve this, until one day, unexpectedly and years later, I noticed that I was in fact “on my own way.”
The transferal of knowledge
On one occasion when we met at sunrise in the desert I had prepared a new dress for our meeting. I had cut some white crepe de Chine fabric into strips about ten centimetres wide, dipped some into red ink and the others into black ink and when they had dried I plaited them into a thick bands and twisted them around my body, from my shoulders to ankles. On the section from my hips to the ankles, I wove wispy black and wispy red ostrich feathers into the twisted crepe de chine, in a way that made the feathers billow out behind me. I pulled on a pair of thick black tights, slipped my feet into crimson crocs and waited at the rock, just as the sun was painting a pale, luminous band across the edge of the horizon.
He rode a different horse on that day, it was a dappled grey, with feathery fetlocks and large hooves. I raised up my head to kiss his horse’s velvet nose and breathe its warm breath into my body. After my Guide had got of his horse, he turned and said to me: “Look at my hands, see how they are lined. They know much. Put your palm on top my palm and let yourself receive my “knowing”
That was a pivotal sacred moment for me, from which all other life changing events would stem. I felt complete calm, and with it came a confidence from knowing that I knew “something” that I didn't know before, and that “something” was to strengthen me and protect me.
Sometimes I would bring him food that I had cooked, and on an occasion, I had carefully marinated mackerel in rice wine, grated ginger, garlic, strips of lemon peel, fresh cardamom seeds, olive oil, salt, ground black pepper. The marinated mackerel lay in a deep white plate, on a bed of grated apples. I had also brought along my crunchy wheat biscuits and imagined how he would push the mackerel, delicately onto the biscuits with a silver fork, open his mouth and crush the slightly sweet biscuits with the spicy fish, just as the warm sun rose slowly over the horizon.
What I learnt
Because I found myself dressing in an imaginative way for our meetings, it had a positive effect on the way I dressed “in my real life.”
He suggested literature, and poetry through a subliminal way, and ignited a sense of wonderment in me. This enabled me to be more creative, which was a great asset to the work that was doing at that time.
He introduced me to the ecstatic poet, Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi the Persian Sufi Master born 1207. By “introducing” I do not mean that he actually said to me: “Read Rumi today!” What happened was that books, films, snippets of what people said, things I read by chance, came to me, and formed ideas that were normally outside my little bubble, which lead me to discoveries. Of course this happens anyway in ones life, but at that I time I felt it was more specific and lead me to think in a more open and universal way. I read also “The conference of Birds” by Attar (1177 ) and discovered the poetry of Hafiz. I had became more “open” and by open, I mean; I started to become conscious of my surrounds and my thoughts.
-I became inspired by the connection I felt to all living beings and animals, around me.
I learnt that dependence on oneself, is freedom from all other dependencies
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Yes. Yes. Yes.