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Writer's pictureVanessa Cook

Thoughts on patterns of space/time, masculine/feminine; plus excitement of approaching trip back to Egypt.



How many times have I started this blog, then changed directions or temporarily abandoned it before picking it up again? It feels like many. A bit like my on/off love affair with harem pants, which I’m sorry to say might be making a tentative comeback to my wardrobe. I blame my trip to Egypt last year. I found a smashing pair in an Egyptian cotton shop.

   I started the blog writing about the past, in particular the Story of Stupid and the Idiot, which was a corker of a non-love story filled with embarrassing moments and self-deprecation. I rather enjoyed writing the instalments of that one. It gave me the opportunity to take a really honest look at part of my life, which proved to be exceedingly therapeutic and spectacularly timely. After an abusive relationship ending in divorce and unexpected single parenthood, numerous surgeries in the space of a year, almost dying, postpartum depression, change of occupation and moving country it had taken me years to even begin to pull myself out of that hole. Writing about bits of it made me look and come to terms with some things.

   Once I finished that one I wasn’t sure where to go next and sort of lost steam. I got side-tracked wanting to turn The Story of Stupid and the Idiot into a book which didn’t get very far because I was told by a publisher acquaintance of mine that to sell a book I needed a social media following. This was a teeny bit of a stumbling block as my only social media presence at the time was a little used Facebook page.

   Being the low self-esteem sheepson that I was, I took his obviously more experienced and wise words to heart and delved into the social media world, firstly to try and make sense of it and secondly to gather a following. I can’t say I have got very far with either of these objectives but in the intervening years I have grown stronger in myself and decided to hell with what other people say, I’m going do things my way.


I might have said that before too.


Lots has happened in the years between that first story and now. If you are one of the few people who follows me on social media you might have an inkling but if not too bad, I can’t be arsed to go back and explain the past again. Pieces of the puzzle will no doubt be liberally dropped in here and there but I don't feel like looking backwards right now. I also took the whole blog page off the website so there’s no way to look back at archived material and I have far too much on my plate to upload old things. *actually, having just reinstated it, some of the old posts that escaped the purge are still there and will be left up - huzzah!

     No, what’s done is done and we have to look forward. And to be honest that’s what I am feeling the call for. Not even looking forwards, to be fair, but more being present. It’s such a drag to have to keep drudging up the past when there are so many exciting things happening in the present. I’m currently writing a book on my last trip to Egypt, that also brings in the odd story here and there from my past. A book on my journeys with Ayahuasca and what I learned from the medicine during the long integration process after. And I still have Stupid and the Idiot on a slow-cooking back burner. I move at a glacial pace with any writing because my days are so full of life. And that's ok, i've accepted that. That's also where I want to keep the backward looking lens, with the books. On here I'm going to keep it present and share as things come up.

    Anyway, I want to keep these short and to the point as much as possible so they can turn out to be actually sustainable and attainable for me right now. I am all about sustainable and attainable at the moment. Let’s keep everything simple and achievable please. So, let’s get to it.


I went for a walk with Pipoca yesterday and had some quite interesting thoughts. Well, they were interesting to me. The sun was out, the birds were singing, it was warm enough to just be in a vest and I was enjoying the feeling of heat on my skin. Heat in March! I’m convinced this is radically unusual even though it probably happens every year.

    It felt peaceful stepping out of our little hamlet onto the dusty track leading through the fields towards the wooded hills behind. I didn’t feel the call for steep climbs and scrambling through the forest, not today. Today was a day for gentleness. For the sound of a melodic brook meandering its way ever so coolly across the valley. I wanted to be by the river. It called me. I could feel the water, see her movement in my mind’s eye. And my feet turned in that direction, carrying me along, drawn to her like all the other animals who roam these hills must be at some point in their day.

    My mind wondered lazily as I walked and I watched it pulling up things here and there. I watched the threads of connections, just watched, not striving or expecting, just watching the patterns emerge.

I see the universe in patterns, you see. Layers of patterns expressing themselves in different dimensions, in different ways. It’s truly quite wondrous. Sometimes I wished I could stay in this deep place of expansive observation. But then the worry about making a living crashes. Or frustration at how to maintain a clean, operational house when really I want to be frolicking in the woods all day or writing or drawing or playing martial arts, or rolling down grassy hills, or starting a prank war with an unsuspecting friend - god, I haven’t done that in ages, sigh - thunders me back to earth. But even within all that there are patterns to observe and patterns to live.

   I began thinking about my connection with Egypt. I don’t know what it is but I feel it. Always just - there. Or is it in here? I think, indicating within me, into the everything.

   It feels so close to me; and yet it is from far in distant, distant times.

And then the pattern of the lifetimes came into sharp relief. The twists and turns strands of information take, never so neat and, well, angular as the lines and squares of our world. Of course, we can be close to each other in space, feeling the power of the energy but time connects us in a different way. A thread connecting moments in a particular, familiar, swirling pattern.

    This interests me and I marvel at the patterns for some time. I can see them illuminated within the torus of the universe and they take on the form of beings. Not just points or lines of information but in totality, the whole thread becomes a being. In turn part of another but I don’t go there for now. My mind turns to the beings I see in Egypt. The desert, the nile, in other dimensions they look quite different.

In a week we will be in Cairo. The thought sends a jolt of - something, buzzing down the side of my body. It both overwhelms me, like standing on the edge of a precipice, and at the same feels so clear and evident, and in that I find comfort.

Mum and I are going on a quest to bring reconciliation and healing to our matriarchal lineage. It is deep and important work we set out to do and beautifully my grandmother, who currently has one foot in the other world as she prepares to leave this life, will be joining us in spirit. She has made that clear to mum in her dreams, her desire to join us, and we acknowledge her presence and welcome her assistance as we navigate this work.

    There is something big that our line has carried. Some distant, ancient trauma that has been passed on. And simultaneously there is a blinding light of truth there too, a purity that goes way back. I can sense it, I have seen something of it although I don’t understand yet all that it is.


We are open to remembering and in the remembering we offer loving integration.

    

I think about the female body and its capacity to create life and it occurs to me that perhaps I have held an idea upside down. I look at the idea as an image in my mind and ponder the different aspects of it.

   The masculine comes as pure potential, a light of all possibilities and leaves this flame within the body of the feminine. Her body, the material universe takes this light and creates form from the spark of possibilities. She is the creator of life in material form, he is the holder of the void, the mysteries, the infinite. She is order, he is chaos, pure potential. Why have the roles been reversed? Why, in this modern world, is the feminine seen as the All, infinite potential, the chaos and the masculine as order, materialism, the creator of form? It doesn’t fit. There is some confusion there in interpreting the pattern. She gives birth to the material expression of spirit. He is the channel for spirit. And I don’t mean men and women, I mean the archetypal masculine and feminine, for all things consist of both. I decide to ponder this further and track the implications, track the pattern in this light.

In the meantime life goes on. Chores need doing. Cats need cuddling. Dog needs walking. Garden needs weeding. House needs cleaning. Son needs nurturing. Body needs movement. And through all of this I watch the patterns and explore different ways of interacting with this reality. And soon, soon I will be back in Egypt. Beloved Egypt.

When my mind goes there, my soul moves with such deep joy that I weep. I weep for my homecoming.

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