Like a Star in Daylight
Like a Star in Daylight
Week 37 of 2024 asks, “Perhaps you can’t see the way to Nirvana/God because you’re already there…?”
To see how Sam Pepys spent this week 364 years ago, follow this link.
In the same way that Friday 13th is the birthday of Winnie the Witch, I can’t help now but think of it as a sort of anniversary of my father’s death. But not in a mournful or morbid way – I like to reflect on how Gaggy is still a close influence in my life.
On this week’s Friday 13th, though, I could sense him chuckling with victory at the prevalence of his preferred philosophy: pessimism.
Due to apparently inescapable supply chain delays (and believe me, I’d tried), a bunch of books were yet to arrive from the printers that had already been paid for by our customers. I had thus encouraged the boss to switch to a supplier more local to me.
While this would be cheaper in the future, and enable me to pick up the books hot off the press rather than wait extra days for delivery, on this occasion we’d had to pay double the usual price for a ‘rush’ service, so we could fulfil our customers’ orders without any further delays.
The books were ready on Friday morning. Prior to leaving to collect them, I had just finished writing a letter of apology to the customers when I realised: my inkjet was out of ink in one cartridge, so it was refusing to print anything. Could I send these books without an apology?
Then, of course, it hit me: I was about to visit a printer! Surely they could add a few 1-page A4 letters into the mix…?
I called up, and our account manager was wonderfully agreeable, even saying we wouldn’t be charged for this teeny task.
Grateful to him – and delighted with my own intuition – I emailed the letters, then got into the car.
25min later, our AM brought the box of our books to the door. As he pointed to the letters on top, he commented, “They all seemed to be coming out in that weird way, I don’t know why…”
The logo was off colour, the first paragraph was blue and fuzzy, and the remainder was somewhat blurred.
I know why, I thought. You need to replace one of your ink cartridges mate.
I couldn’t say that out loud, since he’d keenly done me such a kind favour. But I couldn’t send these off with the books either, as they looked woefully unprofessional. It was too late to do anything about it in that moment, though, since there were no ink shops nearby – and I had a performance to deliver.
Double the money for a rush job, then – wasted.
“Alright, Gaggy, stop laughing,” I told his spirit as I drove into Cambridge.
A few hours later, I was adopting the visage of Richard III – or rather, his ghost, still heavily bloodied from his last wound in battle. This was to be a one-off performance (at least for a good long while) for the Cambridge Festival of Drama, so perhaps our only chance to get it right.
As I ran lines in the dressing room with Lucy, my unsurpassably talented co-star, I concentrated on correcting my biggest mistake: arriving too early for my first entrance. In rehearsal, I’d often appear a moment before my cue.
This had never thrown Lucy, mainly because we’d planned for the stage lights to be too dark for anyone to see me at that point. But in our tech run that afternoon, we discovered this wouldn’t now be possible. The audience would see me creep on and hide in place in readiness for my ‘reveal’ to Lucy’s character – so I’d have to time this reveal perfectly.
Come the moment, I hid in place, repeatedly telling myself not to reveal until Lucy said the cue line.
And, for the first time ever, Lucy didn’t speak the cue line.
As the lights went up around me, I realised what had happened. It wasn’t Lucy’s fault at all; in rehearsal, I’d led her to expect, albeit subconsciously, that I would appear after her earlier words. Eventually, I had no choice but to pop up comically late, getting a laugh rather than a gasp.
More to Lucy’s credit than to mine, though, we managed to continue to the end of our performance without the shaky start throwing us off.
Even so, on my way home, I had to tell Gaggy’s spirit again: “Stop laughing!”
I didn’t get much sleep that night: come 5am I was already on my way to collect our friend Cherry for a weekend of experiential philosophy at the Glastonbury home of bestselling author (and good pal o’ mine) Timothy Freke.
As I drove down a straight country lane towards her village, a deer suddenly stepped out from one side of the road towards me.
Had I kept going at 60, I probably would’ve missed it. But my reaction was to brake, which brought my car door in line with it. I saw it turn its body parallel to Bella just before a heavy CLNK!
I continued to slow, frantically checking my mirrors – but I couldn’t see anything in the darkness. Overwhelmed with guilt, I drove on – and then got hit by another wave of guilt for just driving on.
After collecting Cherry, though, I had to drive back along the same road, so we both kept an eye out…
…and saw the same deer standing there by the side of the road, just peacefully watching us pass. Cherry spoke for both of us when she said, “It’s like it wants to let you know it’s OK!”
What a serendipitous start to a weekend of experiential philosophy! As Tim guided a room of 22 strangers through shared meditations to sense the divine love that connects us all, I tried to silence my usual frustration at not ‘getting it’ like many of the others did – a feeling of failure that I’d become accustomed to after similar results at six of Tim’s previous retreats.
But then, in the final reflective session on Sunday, almost everyone spoke about being lifted from a place of deep immersion in their day-to-day towards a feeling of being safely held in the minds of everyone else. Held with tenderness and acceptance that meant everything would ultimately be OK.
And, for the first time, a realisation reached me: I never sensed a movement towards that feeling because I was already there.
Everyone at the retreat. The deer. Lucy.
Gaggy.
All these were minds that received me with thanks, forgiveness, and/or fun.
I’m sure there are folks out there who think ill of me. But my tendency is to focus on those I know I’ve helped in some way, and spend my time trying to raise that number. Striving to leave a positive mark on the world – to me, that’s what love feels like.
Realising that? That’s Nirvana. $;-)
What does love feel like to you? How do you know when you’ve found it?
I’d love to discuss your thoughts with you, so please shoot me a reply. $:-)
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What does love feel like to you? How do you know when you’ve found it?