The magic of rebirth

The weekend passes by in a flash. On Sunday the team spends time with Jayachitta doing some movement and dance. I arrive late, and can feel my resistance. The first exercise she has us doing is throwing balls around the room and catching them. I immediately feel my resistance drop. Catching is one of my specialities and my enjoyment of the day just flows from there. The second exercise involves suggestions of areas of the body to focus on in movement. I let the music in. I curl up in a ball and want to hide. Slowly but surely I allow my body to begin moving, and I love the freedom that comes from being able to move in whatever way I want, and being able to hide and curl up in a ball whenever I want. I experience resistance when she asks us to focus on movement in our wrists. My wrists go limp and attempt a "door knocking" movement, my head says to itself "I never want to knock on anyone's door ever again..." I enjoy playing with the resistance and the fact that I can be so half-hearted in the movement of knocking on doors with my wrists in mid air.

I feel much more grounded in my body as a result of the workshop. We have been doing a lot of talking and communicating on this appeal, and for once, it is lovely to contact the earth and be in a space without words. I lap it up.

My grandmother died the day before, Saturday, the day of the Summer Solstice. I feel that the day signifies a time for things coming to fruition and also a time of change and new beginnings. I think about my grandmother's rebirth. Something that has come in for me very strongly during this period of waiting to hear of her death is a feeling that there is a transitionary process around death, and that there is clearly a bardo, a space between life and death, and that I feel all I can do is wish her well for the time she travels in this dimension. I feel as if my part is to be there in this world, in my body, and wish her well in her transition. I have been consciously cultivating karuna or compassion, and metta or loving kindness for her during my meditations and at other times. The day of her death we light a candle for her, and Vajrasattva appears and I silently say his mantras over and over in my mind. Today the team brings her to mind in our team metta practice in the afternoon and we wish her well in the bardo.

When I woke this morning it was as if something had shifted in my heart. Some of the communication and conversations I had with Akasavajri this weekend just resonated deeply within my heart and touched me on many different levels of my being. I realise that I feel full of warmth, love, contentment and confidence. I go out door knocking in the evening from this place. My fear feels small tonight, and I'm able to hold it like a microdot on a TV screen background that is somehow much larger and full of other emotions and feelings.

Every door I knock on people seem open and present with me, I leave a lot of booklets with a lot of lovely people. Even when people say "no" it is as if they are really present with me and they wish me well. I allow myself the thought that perhaps it is because I am being able to be really present with them. I notice that I am "in the zone", where I feel truly open and practically glide down the pathways to the doorsteps. I have no fear as I wait for the householders, I feel quietly confident and able to sense this flowing universe around and inside of me. Even when fear comes, somehow I'm able to greet it and it does not get in the way of my wish to connect.

I call back to a guy that I'd left a standing order form with early last week. I have been patient, and been to see him on four occasions. On one occasion last week, his daughter who is one and half years old was really ill, and I connected with the sadness and suffering in her eyes, and reached out to her and wished her well. On the next occasion that I go she is feeling much better and she says goodbye to me and her eyes beam. They say that you can never count on a standing order until it's firmly tucked away in your bag. Tonight, my first standing order of the appeal is, after a week and a half of door knocking, firmly tucked away inside my bag. It feels great to break my "duck", and also have such a great evening and day full of connection. When you have days like this on appeal it is as if the world is shining back at you and in the reflection you are able to contact love, warmth and connection, and feel truly alive. There is no other feeling like it and I feel truly able to be present with this feeling of aliveness and wellbeing. The day feels golden to me.