From Rags To Riches ? On Day 40

November 24th 2006

I wake up early and drift in and out of sleep for a while. I have this weird thought about Cinderella and about her rags to riches story and about how my journey is about that too - rags (a dark life filled with shit) to riches (a lighter life filled with love and acceptance) and how she remained the same person throughout her journey and so (fundamentally) do I .. as underneath 'I' am there ALL the time and 'I' am perfect ALL the time. The golden/glass slipper awaits me every morning in the dawning of a new day, a new moment and I can choose rags or riches every day .. I have the awareness that currently, I am choosing rags again.

I take the dog out and am hardly there in the moment at all.

I sit at the window with the garden and I draw a cinderella mandala




















followed by an anger mandala which is an expression of how I feel about Tai Chi and my form





















and then a green (the colour of heart ?) circle filled with black not touching the sides ?













I decide to make a mandala for my Deepening Statement to give to R tomorrow. This comes from my heart as I engage again with the power of the feelings the words convey.


I come to my room after having some lunch because T gets up. I decide this afternoon I will continue with scrapbooking my journey. The afternoon is very quiet, but I am busy, busy and although there are not really thoughts, it is not the real heart quiet I have come to know. I guess I could celebrate that I know and can feel the difference between the two ?

As it is Dad's birthday, I make my way there for tea and I feel able to allow this, to be part of my project day. Even when he says he didn't want the present I got him, he wanted something else ! I feel ok. I stay a while and come home around 7pm. I return to my room for some more scrapping. The rest of the evening is quiet also and my space has not been disturbed at all today, neither from the outside or the inside.

I come to bed with the intention to engage with 'real' quiet .. this doesn't happen as, thoughts begin about Poulstone tomorrow, thoughts that I am a fraud, going to a Tai Chi retreat day when currently, I really do not like Tai Chi and I do not want to play my form, knowing I will have to stand in front of all of these things tomorrow.

I lie awake for hours unable to quieten these thoughts .. thrown off centre until I finally fall to sleep.