Time. The one aspect of life that I had been struggling and fighting as a child unconsciously has been showing up on me in many ways and recently revealed itself. I was invited to be a part of a gathering of individuals practicing self-awareness from different walks of life. It was a strange experience for me in many ways. I felt grossly uncomfortable in a room full of strangers. The child in me was thrown into that time warp when I entered my first school, the second school, high school, a new crèche, getting no time to get acquainted or to establish connection. However I met a man at this gathering who brought to light this intense battle for getting enough time and my inner child spontaneously reached out to him for comfort. It was an outburst within that I observed in me for a second time in my life. It unraveled this deep need to restore the connection with my dad with whom I was closest to in my family and who raised me like a mother. I realized that as a child, I missed being as old as him and longed to be older than I was physically all along. It also uncovered a part of me that longed for a time when men would be slow and chivalrous – who gave women time and quiet affection; when romance meant just holding hands, sitting in the shade of a tree in a quiet evening, when there would be fewer words and more silences exchanged between lovers. It was around that time that I watched Woody Allen’s latest film, “Midnight in Paris” and cried with gratitude – he understood that part of me which longed for la belle epoque that was lodged in the woman in me.
All along the movie I had a sense of “being read” – like Mr.Allen was in my consciousness and was reading my thoughts better than I…like he could feel this longing in me to run away to another time. I had a strong sense of a spontaneous past life recall where I would muse for that time – a time gone by. With this man who I met at the sangha gathering I was able to restore that romantic part of me and give it expression. It was a deeply restorative phase. Like a ruined cathedral waiting to be restored so that it could see the young people come in with their families to pray again. I could say out loud to him things I longed to express to my dad but couldn’t due to our generational language gap. Singing in his midst took me back to those days when I would sing for hours with my dad around. Just being in his presence I could sense my inner child come alive in a playful mode and this embalmed the low self esteem I had been suffering for long. It was almost medicinal and yet sweet. His core philosophy was about discovering grace – how at any point we are always held by grace. Though I haven’t still experienced it, thanks to his presence, there seems to be a deeper cognition of this thing called grace. In far subtler ways, being with him has taught me how one tries to control our relationships with each other and how very organically, life is constant motion of relating with the other. I began with seeing my dad in him, recovering and living my belle epoque with him, which led to projecting a lover onto him, which ultimately led me to embrace my inner man in yet another form. I was taken back to my study of archetypes that I had learned through Inner Child work where a child has to free his/her Self from the romantic projections of a parent to discover it’s own unique identity – here I could embrace that sub-personality in me that had cast itself into the mold of a spouse towards my dad. It makes me smile as I write this because relationships are all about the grays 🙂 It also took me to the Jungian Anima-Animus projection I had studied under Jacqueline Marie Longstaff last year where I could see how progressively the animus subconscious was transforming with every man I got attracted to. As I weaved in and out of projections, at times I saw him for him – an ordinary man with a childlike love for life in the same journey as I am in – and at times my mind made him larger than life. Delving deeper I also engaged in a deeper study of spiritual astrology to understand the finer aspects of me relating with him. That was another journey of awareness in its own right. I discovered through the planetary aspects that in a past life his actions resulted into a lot of co-dependency and loss of contact with my inner child. This lifetime he had a soul contract to bring these as gifts through our relationship. It seemed to fit perfectly the way the relating was unfolding. As it fitted the infinitesimal pieces of a puzzle, I felt that embracing these subtleties made an impact as wholesome as salt added to a dish. His presence, I realized, added salt in my life – an aspect of me I was unconsciously missing. It felt like I had been dragging my feet all the way feeling slightly lost, but after feeling this part of me come uncovered, I felt sanctified, found. I was struck by how much this part of relating with another has been depicted in Woody Allen’s previous film, “Vicky Cristina Barcelona” . Films have always been a medium of great learning and wisdom for me but to see intricacies of life portrayed with so much finesse has completely shifted the way I look at films now.
As this projection has almost left now, rather has gained recognition within me than being projected outside, I can feel the ‘attraction’ drop and it just feels like a deeper shade of me was revealed. More so, I learned to acknowledge people bringing me life lessons rather than assuming they come by sitting in a spiritual workshop. Life is teaching…always…even through the so-called positives. And maybe we are here coming back in a moment of eternity to just greet, meet, exchange gifts through our hands, and leave…leaving behind the ultimate work of art – life.
“We are travelers on a Cosmic Journey, stardust, swirling
and dancing in the eddies and whirlpools of infinity. Life is Eternal.
We have stopped for a moment to encounter each other, to meet,
to Love, to share.This is a precious moment.
It is a little parenthesis in Eternity”
~Paulo Coelho
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