Tag: calm

The gentle smiling magician

The elders in our community are magicians. When we lose one, the community feels the loss, massively.

We recently lost one of our beloved community elders, Keshubhai, and I have deep remorse that I didn’t spend enough time with him.

Consistently, in every single interaction I’ve had with him in the past decade that I recall knowing him, he would gently look towards me, hold my gaze and smile with such heart and joviality that all my stresses would melt away in that moment. He might share a few brief words, but with each word uttered, his eyes would glisten with mischief.

And it’s not just Keshubhai. So many of our elders have worked incredibly hard, over the decades, to cultivate inner stillness so that their light may shine bright. It’s a light that embraces, that disarms, that illuminates and can fill you, all parts of you, with love.

As each of our elders continue to leave, one by one, I realise just how much of the magic we are letting slip through our fingers. As I get older, year by year, day by day, moment to moment, I endeavour to absorb this magic embodied by our elders. I seek, with all my heart, to be worthy of becoming such a gentle, loving, joyful elder in the community when I reach later life.

Keshubhai’s departure has hit me harder than I would have cared to admit. While he might no longer be around for me to interact with, this gentle smiling magician lives on in my heart.

40 years on, or now?

As I sit in the local park on a bright autumn afternoon, I flash forward 40 years when I’m in my late 70s.

How might life be like for me at that point? The world might become brighter while illumination takes place within. I might be surrounded by people I adore, or immersed in the joy of solitude, or both. I might be running around with ease, or trapped in a stationary body, but free regardless.

How will my character have improved? I might be more accepting of the circumstances that life presents. Or perhaps I will challenge each situation with greater vigour and no risk of anything to lose.

Decades of loss as family and friends drop to the ground around me, as will be inevitable for me too. Like a phoenix rises from the ashes, I too can arise now, before much more time must come to pass.

The Great Storm 30 years on: Surfacing trapped memories from childhood

It’s 3:45pm on 16 October 2017, the sky is grey, the wind is really picking up and here I am back in Wealdstone, the town I grew up in, exactly 30 years on from the great storm of ’87.

I was only six, but I recall clearly how we were walking back home from school, just mum, my brother and I, and how the Great Storm of 1987 had hurricane-force winds that caused substantial damage and 18 deaths in southern England.

It was super windy and we were walking home unprotected from the elements. I was six and my brother was four and mum was there with us, so for us brothers, it was just a fun experience – what did we care?

Before we knew it, a loose roof slate flew past our heads, narrowly missing us, and smashed into pieces onto the ground in front of us. My brother and I thought it was cool but mum must have been petrified as we hurried home to get safely indoors before the weather got really bad.

So here I am back in Wealdstone, not far from the school or the route back home to our first house. I see mothers with their young children, the kids playing and skipping and their mothers encouraging them to get into the car or quickly get home.

It’s now 11 years since mum died and it fascinates me how the memories of my youth are starting to resurface, triggered by at times striking, at times mundane moments.

It’s been known that memories prior to a bereavement can sometimes get covered up, perhaps due to the mind wanting to protect me from the pain of recollection. As I continue to let go of the need for control and as the fears built up over the decades start to dissolve, the memories calmly, clearly and lovingly come to light… and they pass.

So here I am, observing these memories, these fond memories of my youth, arising and passing, arising and passing.

I observe the seemingly real protection of our parents, the subsequent realisation that there is no-one in this world who can ever truly provide protection, and the journey taken to identify and embrace the one place where solace, then calm, then stillness and then joy is progressively uncovered.

In the midst of the storm, it is this place that draws me in, humbled with the knowledge, protection and serenity that all is and will forever be well.