Category: Diary of a Bodhisattva

The sun is glinting through trees, houses, trees, houses, tall buildings, stations where we don’t stop, flashing by, sun glinting, light flashing through; sky bright blue on this February day that will never ever happen again, and it has already happened and it has never happened at all.

We’re making it all up as we go along from the core of our being, the reflection of all we see is us, reflected back in this glorious scene called life.

Its all upside down, this day that I am just beginning, is closing now for my beautiful Chinese dragon niece, Jess,  metal chines dragon no less – the highest order there is.

She is in Japan and so as I write on this sunny bright Wednesday morning, the day is nearly done for her – her evening stretching in front of her..

When Jess landed briefly in London at the end of last year, we started to talk about all the rituals and rhythms that reflect us… And how we can investigate them, to deeper and deeper discover who we are, our make up, our energy…To understand the life we have come to lead, the energy we have come to bring from the shadows, to integrate and clear and so set us free to be…

And so with both the New year as we know it approaching, and the Chinese new year following swiftly behind it – Jess, Anadi and I looked up all our Chinese signs and discovered that my  beautiful niece is a Chinese dragon… And a Metal Chinese dragon, the most powerful of all the signs…

When we know these things, it can help us discover aspects of our self that we might have hidden or lost or disowned through the rough and tumble of life…

Life an opportunity to feel and heal, to see and understand, and so free ourselves to know who we truly are and live from this place… Limitless expression… Freedom!

So today has already been a wonderful day…

I woke at 6am, and at 6.30am, as planned, Jess and I spoke to one another  on WhatsApp video – across all those miles and hours of time difference, we were in one another flats! The miracle of this Star Trek world we live in… 

Her scene all snowy white in the afternoon light – and my day yet to dawn!

When we finished chatting, it was nearly 5pm for her and I set of for an 8am morning spin around Battersea Park… I encountered a mixture of seasons, biting cold winter weather, wrapped up runners and walkers, with spring blossoms white promise on some of the trees; yellow crocuses pushing courageously through on their journey to bring in their full bright expression of joy..

It takes courage, for all of us to push through the adversity we all encounter at times on our life journey, to bring in our full bright expression – and the crocus and snowdrops, so fragile and light, yet so strong are like us all…

Being aware off our sensitivity and strength – all at once – can helps us to be real, to feel – and to keep growing and trusting when things feel too hard… As Antonio Machado reminds us in my favourite Spanish poem…  ‘Caminante no hay camino – Se hace camino al andar…’

‘Walker there is no path, we make the path by walking…’

It takes courage to keep walking when we don’t know the way; but when we dare to trust, we can stay in the step, and know that the next will take care of itself – and so we make our path, we make our way by walking it….

Celebrating and validating our differences leads to connection; both in relating individually or in groups; families, working environments, teams, villages, town and cities – whole countries and cultures…

Understanding one another, allows us to truly relate… 

Fundamentally this comes from understanding ourselves…Being prepared to recognise that anything that triggers us – irritates upsets, throws out is all to do with us.

When we live from this position, then the space between us, and the other remains safe and clear.

If every time we feel something inside us, that means we want to ‘fight of fly’ – then by pressing pause and staying present – here and now – we can clear that energy within us and not project it onto the other…

The mist can clear and we find ourselves at ease again, and in a position to truly listen, validate empathise and understand the persons who is communicating with us.

We can see and hear them in the present

We can validate their different position, different ideas and perspective on something.

This takes practise of course, 24/7 practise…

But, it leads to a far deeper connection than hoping everyone will ‘be like us’.

Last night, Anadi told me that he loves working late into the night, not always, but often – when he is programming on his computer. He says his brain works best this way – to go to bed late having worked late and to get up late.

I prefer to go to bed early and get up early… I like to do most of my exercising early – my body works best this way.

Anadi and I met in 2012 and got married in February 2014 – almost exactly six years ago now.

In our very first conversation – which was on the phone to set up a time for Anadi to interview me on my running as a meditation – we shared our different ways of living.

The Owl and the Lark!

We felt the connection with one another in that first conversation, and soon we were relating more deeply… From the outset we committed to a conscious relationship…

By this we meant one where we were both fully committed to our own process; that we wouldn’t project anything that arose within us, which needed to be ‘worked out’, onto the other.

We committed that we would own our own process always, whilst supporting the other in theirs…

We spoke early on about living separately – but always deepening the relating..

However instead of living separately we set off as nomads in December 2013 and for four years were together the whole time, often living in a small room somewhere across the seas, where we knew no one but each other…

I went to bed later and Anadi got up earlier!

We grew closer and closer as we navigated and validated our differences and worked through every single thing that arose… Not a stone was left unturned…

In 2018 it became obvious that Anadi needed to be in London more for his business and I in Spain – to run across it! ( in bare feet!) 

My heart wrenched as we parted at Gatwick – but I knew this too was to be worked through…

During that year we only saw on another for a few weekends – about once a month…But we continued to grow closer as we communicated across 2000 miles. ..The essence of our relating being our own commitment to clearing and consciousness…

Fast forward to this year – 2020

We are both living and working in London… 

We are living in separate flats two minutes around the corner from one another…Anadi goes to bed in the early hours and I get up in the early hours!

Except when we have sleep overs of course…

Then the owl influences the Lark and the Lark the Owl!

My new office is a perfect commute distance… Exactly four miles door to door.

It takes just as long to travel by public transport as to run.

And so, having organised myself with all that is necessary here, to make sure I am ‘clean for my clients’, I have been running to work and running back again.

I keep getting confused in the underpass at Hyde park corner…The young guy who lives there has been helpfully directing me… ‘No miss that way for Hyde Park’… And the other day, he called after me ‘Miss you want Hyde Park… And this morning ‘That way for Green Park Miss…’

You wouldn’t think it was that difficult!

It feels like a space of no time. 

Emerging onto the street in the morning, and finding myself propelled along the King’s road, through Hyde Park, into Green Park and then I see Eros welcoming me from on high.

And the same for my return journey…Padding along in the dark, weaving my way through all the people on the streets.

In my own space.

A meditation on the move amongst the bustle and noise and activity of Central London Streets.

Where I am all alone, silent, just me alone with everyone else…

All one

I like being alone in a crowd of humans

All one

Together moving through the busy streets, and winter tree lined parks of London. I like being alone with people all around, together with each other, alone…

All one.

All of us born of the same consciousness.

Silence.

Teeming with all there is, unrealised creativity, waiting to manifest into whatever hasn’t been yet realised… Limitless possibility arising from the silence within

All one

And I am all alone, following the stops on the tube.

Journeying home

Piccadilly – Green Park – Hyde Park corner – Knightsbridge… And back the way I came, along the King’s road

In joyous celebration of a moving meditation

Letting the running take me where it will

Becoming running…

As I run along alone in a crowd of humans.  

I like it at Piccadilly Circus – it’s rather ‘like Piccadilly Circus’!

There is much activity, much to ing and fro ing… Lots of animation – people meeting people; and chatting away over coffees and food… Sitting at desks, around tables…Planning things, exploring things, en visioning things..

Creativity in motion all around me at Piccadilly Circus.

Yesterday I was sitting in a cafe – (now there’s a surprise) – and six young men appeared for their lunch… They told me that they are working on a big building project nearby; they are the electricians there, and they came in freezing cold… 

‘I wish I could put my toes in my coffee to warm them up’ one announced… He then turned to me and told me that he is doing a B tech in psychology… that he wants to change his life

‘What do you do…?’ He asked me.

After listening to me attempt to say what I do… (43 years of doing it hasn’t left me any more articulate in explaining it; my clients call it all different things and say that the best thing is to experience it….)

How did you get into that? He asked…‘Do you want the long answer’…I laughed ‘Or the Julia’s career path reduced’?

And so it came to pass that I spent an hour chatting to the three who were sitting nearest to me – about my life and how it lead me here – and theirs too.

As they came to leave they all shook my hand – the one I was sitting next to told me I was beautiful… And it is often said that London isn’t friendly.

I experience friendliness wherever I go.

Of course there are the souls that appear to be closed and on auto pilot – but that is everywhere in the world; not just London town.

Everything is new again for me…

 I belong to Pure Gym which is a chain, and here I have one directly below my new work space… I went to train there today – and wandered about lost… Eventually finding my way into the changing room – then having as many problems finding my way out…!

Running on the treadmill was a safe option for not getting lost 🙂

Nomad life trained me well for changing my whole life in a trice…

But everything has always seemed new to me anyway… Even when it is the same.

Anadi and I were chatting the other day about seeing people when they don’t know you’ve seen them… ‘You always look still, and present from afar’, I said to him…

‘You always look present too’, he replied… ‘But you also look like you’ve just arrived on planet earth and are seeing it for the first time! – Like it’s a new land, and you don’t know the rules or what you are supposed to be doing’…

I laughed

‘That’s about it,’ I replied… ‘I have always had trouble learning the rules…’!

Being shaken up is a good thing, it can free us from something… Kicking up the dust so that we can wipe the slate – clean the mirror…

Being in a body on planet earth lends us to try and keep everything the same, known, safe, secure… But a reminder that this isn’t so, however uncomfortable, is at the deepest level an opportunity for greater freedom…

This is a cryptic way to say that I tripped over – (again!) – while I was running this morning, in the park…

I was winding my way between runners and walkers; dogs and bikes; babies in prams – and I didn’t see the tree roots that had pushed the concrete up out of the ground…

I flew through the air, and landed face down; ripping my new gloves – my hands were glad of their protection! The hard ground, cut both my knees, blood seeping immediately through my leggings…

In the moments before landing I experienced pure emptiness – total meditation – on the move! 

I rolled over immediately and sat up – a few people rushed over…‘I’m good’, I said, ‘thank you thank you…’

They left me be.

The man whose feet I had fallen at checked I was really okay… ‘You want to get up’?

‘No, I’ll stay here a bit…Thank you’… He ran on…

The activity continued all around me…Suddenly I felt tearful, my body shocked… Sitting on the ground on a sunny bright day of winter beauty… Shaken up, something clearing out, any attachment to certainty!

A lady came over, she was kind and re assuring… ‘Silly roots’ she said; ‘Silly me’, I replied. 

She helped me up and offered me a lift home…‘No no, Thank you – I’m good’, I said – ‘I don’t live far away, I’ll walk – I’m just a bit shaken up…’

Something being shaken out!

Setting me free

What’s your name I asked as we were parting – ‘Katherine’ she replied.

I wandered along, enjoying the sparkly day… I liked walking along, the river all shiny, reflective – reflecting. I was only about a mile from home…

Freedom.

The wisdom of uncertainty… Nothing safe and secure. The only safety to become safe within, centred… Silent…

And trust in Totality, moment to moment.

If we shake out any rigidity and attachment to things being a certain way; then we are truly free to live every moment.

Here 

Now.

It was Thursday morning in early January…

I was sitting in a little cafe drinking a delicious banana peanut butter and almond milk protein shake, having run to the Pure gym in Covent garden, completed a work out there and was now enjoying the aftermath…

As I sat relaxing, an email landed in my inbox. It was from the management team at my office…

‘Urgent news, we need to arrange a meeting with you as soon as possible…’

I responded immediately and was booked in for a slot at 3pm that day…

The meeting took place in a big board room, with the management team I know, and two of the head honchos from the company…

It took only a few minutes… 

The lease on the building had come up for renewal and it is not being renewed…

This meant that the team in front of me, had the difficult task of telling each business owner individually, and the job of re housing 70 businesses, with just two weeks to do it in.

They asked me what was important to me…

‘Good communications, so that my clients can easily travel to me, and a shower in the building so that I can run to work’ I said… 

‘Oh, and coffee shops near by – but that’s  easy in London…’ I laughed.

A location, close to Piccadilly Circus tube station was suggested, and it was emphasised I needed to act quickly as the offices would be going very fast…

And so the next morning, bright and early, I arrived to view what was to become my ‘new home’… 

I couldn’t have created something more perfect…

A bigger office, in a fabulous building, with a Pure gym on the first floor , and Piccadilly tube station a stone’s throw away – my exit right by the Eros statue which I like very much!

This time last year, I was a nomad in Spain…

I couldn’t have predicted the turn my life has taken, but I do know that I have always made the choice to follow the path of inner freedom rather than following my ego, or my mind.

Which looks to be quite a paradox…

By making the choice to follow this path, and by listening always to my inner compass, it has landed me slap bang in the middle of London Town…

With financial commitments to a flat, office space  and Value Added Tax! 

If we trust the path of growth from the journey within

Then all is revealed in each moment as we travel the road less travelled. 

December 31st

I am flying high, away from the little island in the sun towards our winter island cloaked today in misty drizzle…

I love our rainy grey island, that can suddenly bursts into clear blue brightness – for a few days at a time… Before withdrawing again behind a veil of rain, dark blue grey black clouds turning the landscape blue grey too – and then revealing watery sun; always the promise of something new.

And so we are flying back to London Town on New Year’s eve… A new decade unfolding before us, in this moment.

I have never made new year resolutions… Except – I do remember once, when I was about eight or nine, resolving to be nicer to my little sister…!

Remembering this today, I asked Anadi… ’Should I resolve to be nicer to you’? He assured me ‘no’! That I was always nice to him!

Two years running I thought perhaps I would try to have a year where I drank more alcohol – I have never been very good at that!

But I didn’t manage it….

Essentially my intention is always to be silent within, more still, still – no noise inside. Clear.

This is my only resolve.

It has always been thus; but in the past I had much more ‘going on’ – much more noise and chaos reflected in the dramas of my life… my self in relationships to unravel – where to go, what to do, with whom – how? why? where?

Patterns repeating and cycling around, in my running, my life, my relating with others

And always I came back again and again to the common denominator in it all… me – reflected everywhere… Only my own lessons to focus on… Not those of the other… (however tempting that seemed at times!)

And so as the cycles cycled and the years passed, and gradually the pain cleared – and the patterns cleared too – until they were no more.

And the landscape of my life altered – unrecognisably in many ways.

And yet, it looks the same as always from the outside in… To others – the same as always, the life of Julia!

Helping, guiding, mentoring others; Running; Having fun; With a man….

But it all feels different within, more freedom within than ever before.

More silence.

Our birthright is freedom, for all of us. Our birthright is love, unconditional, for all of us…

When we journey inwards to discover who we truly are, we will discover how to be alone and to truly love our self.

And so we re discover our true nature… And in every moment be here, now…

Every moment celebrate the new, every second, every minute every hour, day month and year…

Every decade – new.

Limitless possibility…Now.

Today, I am writing sitting by a pool in 20 degree warmth, rather than in a coffee shop!

Christmas is passing in a restful way, (if you like me find call running and gym work – and handstand practise – restful!)

It is many years since I have celebrated Christmas in a traditional way – about twenty six I would say.

There were a few years when I visited my aunt in her nursing home, and ate with her and her inmates… I sampled only grapes and satsumas, as the meal wasn’t very appealing to me…

I would then enjoy a sandwich in Fleet service station with a few others, also journeying somewhere on Christmas Day… Before making my way onwards to Lyme Regis for a Christmas evening with my sister Rosy and her family…

But other than then, in all these last 26 years, I have spent Christmas quietly…A space, an ending…

Of one year, the start of a new… 

But…

Each moment is new, each moment an ending and a new beginning… 

This moment all we have. 

Here and now.

So looking back and looking forward can sometimes trap us rather than free us.

In every moment we will be shown our past and have the opportunity to create a new future.

In each moment if we ‘react emotionally’ to what is in front of us, we will know there is a tie to the past which needs healing, clearing…

And if there is judgement within the reaction to the person, the situation, then this is an opportunity for healing.

And finding stillness, silence…. 

To be free, it can help to practise clearing every reaction…

Freeing any judgement of another, knowing that every human being is exactly where they are and where they can be, and that we do not know the path another treads…

Observation is different to judgement – but there can be a fine line…

Only we know truly in our own being whether we are observing our fellow travellers or judging them!

And then as we practise – through the silence – between the thoughts – at the bottom and top of the breath.

We can be silent.

And we find that we are free.

Free to fully enjoy the transitions in this life… The holidays and rituals – the events – the fun, in whatever way we choose.

When we recognise the truth of our existence, we can shine our light here on planet earth

Embracing all there is… Reflecting our inner joy, our love outwards… 

And so creating a wonderful world…

Last Friday I padded into the Park. It was still dark –  a bit rainy too – I used the torch from my phone to light my way.
All life’s essentials seem to reside within this  little slim oblong box…
Mine is sparkly pink!

Richmond park where brown deer roam and shiny bikes flash by.
The hum of traffic the backdrop to the oak and chestnut standing strong and present.
Urban parkland wildlife beauty.
As I rounded a bend five deer filed across the road in front of me – at the same exact moment  a car appeared lighting the magnificent beasts in their bright headlight glare.

6.30am Friday morning.
Zen training day at the Richmond harbour hotel had dawned
A few of my clients had mentioned they would like to work with other clients of mine for a whole day long.
The idea was born… and it grew wings.

And so it came to pass that ten of us met in the Parkland meeting room at 9am on Friday the thirteenth of December…The room had been laid out for a business meeting, so with a bit of chair shuffling and shifting about our room opened up…
Zen
Being fully present
Here now
Beyond the duality
In the gap between thought
The silence at the top and bottom of every breath that we take
Presence.

And now the ‘business meeting’ emanated sounds of
Chanting
Hara breathing
Music for kundalini shaking and dancing
The sound of Om – on and on- Ommmm…
As one voice was fading another was beginning reverberating around the room
Safe space for sharing clearing
Being
One
All One

Certain areas seem to draw me back again and again
Or rather certain landscapes – places that must in some way reflect my inner landscape and so resonate – I have found myself re visiting over many decades…
The universe is within us
So within so without
Everything reflecting our inner state

‘Be the change you want to see in the world…’

I first journeyed to Richmond Park when I was twenty one years old.
Running around the circumference then was different to now; it meant finding our own route through the natural wilds…

Now a perfect gravel track opens up in front of us, leading the way around…

Evolution

The path of life also feels smoother for me now than then.

When I was twenty one!

I love sitting on the window of the coffee shop up the road from my office.

In truth there are about four or five ‘up the road ‘ equi distance – and then more and more in an ever increasing circumference around me.

I am surrounded by opportunities to ‘sit and stare’ with great purpose, just because I am having a coffee – or a beetroot oat latte or a matcha with coconut milk!
So much possibility of choice – and colour!
I have always chosen my food by colour…

And so – I am here – in my element – my coffee shop element.

And through the  window I watch the world go by – or  queue!
For the last three weeks there has been a long line, comprised mainly of women which just now dwindled and disappeared.
There is pop up Glossier shop – here til February I have gleaned .

I had become quite accustomed to the queue – outside the window.

And people wandering walking talking, not many moving fast…
I am in tourist land here.
Many holiday makers
Meandering

I feel like I am on holiday too.

I have felt this way all my life.
My life a holiday
A total lifestyle

Or maybe rather than feeling that I am on holiday – I feel that I don’t work.

And yet it’s one of the things I like doing more than anything.
I was sitting with Anadi the other day – in Megan’s restaurant – great coffee – and I said to him…
‘All I really want to do in my life is work’ and he said ‘Yes me too’… And then he added… ‘And spend time with you…’
‘Oh yes – spend time with you…’ I replied
”I love that…

And I do like going running and playing in the gym and going to the theatre and cinema…
And eating lovely food.
So  that’s it…
A total lifestyle.

Happy being where I am – in any moment
Totally there

Totality – is being exactly where we are – fully doing what be are doing and trusting that the next moment will take care of itself.

In the Osho Zen tarot cards “Totality’ is represented by a picture of three trapeze artists, one of them is in the space where she has been let go of by one of her trio and is in mid air, before catching the hands of the next…

Total trust is needed, and total attention, never wavering from being present.

In that gap which is the present moment, where we have no idea what will happen next.
We must just be there.
Here and now
Zen.

The queue has started to form again… Outside the window, where I am sitting…