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Be melting snow…

‘Be melting snow, wash yourself of yourself…’

Today I was talking with Maricarmen – en Español por supuesto – about my life’s practise of clearing the darkness, the karma from within me; I spoke to her of how I understood what I believed I was here to do, at a very young age, perhaps just seven years.

I can review the scene and see the child now…

She is sitting in the wooden slippy pew – vast to her then – with the soft robust hassock under her feet, worn into a nice kneeling bed with much use… It served as a perfect foot rest for the little girl.

She is sitting half listening to the preacher. The church has a musty smell, wafts of the scent from the greenery in generous vases of flowers, arranged by the wives of the churchwardens, mingle in.

As his voice rises and falls, she is watching the dust float up in the sunlight that is beaming through stained glass on this particularly sunny Sunday morning…

He has been speaking for a long time; she is letting many of the words float beyond her absorption, over her head and away, when suddenly something he is saying starts to speak to her; deep within her being, her belly, her very soul… He is explaining the circle of birth, life, death and rebirth, and the symbolism of the serpent with the tail in its mouth. He is talking of cleansing from our sins, of eternal life…

Suddenly she becomes aware of this cycle, in a visceral way – round and round and round… Lifetimes and lifetimes of karma and she understands… How to return to the place of pure love, freedom, the godly state within…

And she understands she has work to do.

The preacher is saying that we must clear our own darkness from within to remember who we truly are.

That day, the young girl fully understood.

I was sharing this story with Maricarmen, and she said… ‘It reminds me of some words that Rumi said…’

‘Conviertete en nieve que derrite. Limpiate de mismo’

Be melting snow… Wash yourself of yourself…’

 

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The more I let go, the more the body runs free…

I am loving my day in the sunshine…

A tranquil day without much movement so far….

I walked across the plaza and down the few steps to the beach this morning and stood in the surf; then I walked back for breakfast and I haven’t moved far since.

It is a contrast to the previous five days where I have been engaged in hours of movement – the contrast feels good.

A pause, where the recovery can happen and the clearing, the opening, the effects emerging out the process, ‘the mission’, can reveal themselves.

‘The mission’ that I embarked on, and carried out over these past few days, has felt to be a space of silence and clearing for me. A practise that has allowed for the expansion and oneness that is the truth of us all, to be experienced in my barefoot running step – even within the paradox of the limits of a body…

The irony for me, is that I always believed that I was born to run, and yet my running steps as a younger woman, were often fraught with tension and pain, and struggle…

But because on the running path, I always came face to face with my tension, because I came face to face with where I was holding on… I saw that this space was a magical enlightening space, and that if I kept running, I would not be able to run away from my pain….

That however hard the journey, I recognised it was for my growth and held the key to my freedom.

It was the reverse of running away from my pain – I knew I needed to run right into it… And so the only way to be free was to keep running and to keep letting go of all that held me…. My pain, the places of darkness where I did not and could not love myself; all these places had to be faced and loved…

The tension and self hatred had to be released…

And the more I let go, the more this body  is able to run free…

And in the running, the body paradoxically becomes conduit that reveals the truth… That we are all one; that we are all energy and that there is no separation.

For me running is the perfect practise to experience this… Even when the soreness in my feet, the frailty of the body occurred, my spirit still was free – I did not worry or fret…

And so the path keeps revealing itself, through the running steps making the road by running it….

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Connection, Communication and Reflection…

I’m sitting on a stone bench in the sun – it is a sunny bright blue sky day.
It is 14.21 in the afternoon and I have no plan.
 
 I am liking being here in the sun…
 
 This morning I ran along to ‘the other end ‘ of Almuñecar – there are two ends and I ran to the Vellila end, where the road turns into a beach, and then by clambering over the rocks I reached another beach… I ran back and forth on the deserted sand for awhile before re tracing my steps to breakfast… A delicious feast of orange juice, coffee – toast with chopped tomatoes, drenched in olive oil – fresh mango and natural yogurt…
 
 I am enjoying the solitude and the sound of Spanish voices all around me.
 I am enjoying the sun and the sound of the waves as my constant music, and the wind in the trees.
 
 I am enjoying the feeling of having nothing to do and nowhere to go…
 Almuñecar has a few souls who ‘wander about’ throughout the day; they all recognise me now because I keep returning to run barefoot through their town…. And now I am sitting like them in the sun, whiling away the hours in silence, watching the world all around…
 
 
Which of course is simply our reflection in every moment.
 
 I was sitting in departures at Gatwick airport, the day before yesterday, opposite a man… I wondered what our connection might be… We were in the same space having a similar experience, and I wondered if we were to ‘press pause’ on the scene and investigate – then not only the man nearest to me, but all of us could have an opportunity to discover what it was linked us all, and reflected ourselves in that moment…
 
 It then happened that the man, me and three ladies, who had been sitting next to me, ended up chatting in the queue to board the plane…
 
 The man and I discovered we were a year apart in age, and that both of our fathers’ had worked on Sierra Leone, and that the two of us spent some of our younger years there… We also found  that he was also journeying to Almuñecar like I was, and is intent on creating a different type of lifestyle…
 
 
The three ladies – in this (rather slow) queue to get onto the plane – exclaimed as we started to venture outside; ‘aren’t your feet freezing cold?’
 
 We laughed and I told them about all the different type of reactions I receive to my naked feet…  ‘And sometimes people just stare and stare as if I am a ‘rare creature ‘ that they have never seen before…’ I explained…
 
 ‘Well you are,‘ one of the ladies laughed… ‘You are a rare creature…’ and then she continued… ‘In the nicest possible way!’
 
 
 
 
 
 
Vallilla… The ‘other end of Almuñecar. My morning run…
 

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Happy New Adventures, Happy New Year…

Happy New adventures, happy New Year from Gatwick airport Hilton Hotel.

I love it here, it is one of my favourite ‘homes’, big expansive beds, deep baths and my little gym which feels like it is my own private space; I have hardly ever had to share it…

Anadi and I are sitting in Costa Coffee, and soon we will collect our hire car and drive to the New Forest where we are staying in a lovely grade 2 listed hotel which was built in 1627… It also has the New Forest’s only gin bar – perfect for Anadi!

We made this plan when we saw that the coming year would be a very different one… We decided we would come and see 2018 in here before taking off on a very new stage of our adventure together.

Because it will be together, but apart for the first few weeks…

Anadi is going to stay in the UK and carry out the same sort of ‘sales tour’ here as he did in South Africa. He has been working hard on iSportsAnalysis all the time we have been nomads – four years – and this stage is new… He is now the front man of his creation…

And I am going to Spain, I do not have a plan – not until March 23rd anyway when I set off Barefoot Across Spain – but in preparing for this, it seems my path unfolding  is to keep running and to keep learning Spanish.

I leave on January 3rd, and Anadi stays – we both have a sense of really and truly stepping into the unknown, but that it is a new adventure unfolding and that the path will, as always, reveal itself…

There is some trepidation that comes and goes within me, but I have learnt to listen to the space between my thoughts, between my fears, between even what I may feel I ‘desire’ or ‘want’ at certain times… And that in dropping into this stillness there, my soles journey is continuing…

This is the space I trust and this is the space I am walking into in 2018…

Que sera sera…

 

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This is us, full stop.

Another plane blog… I am flying off to Lanzarote with Anadi for Christmas…

Eighteen days in the UK has passed in a blink of an eye, and yet landing at Gatwick two and a half weeks ago, feels now like it might have been five years ago.

And when I met up with my godbrother Phil on Saturday- who I actually haven’t seen for five years – it was as if we had simply run out of hours on our last ‘get together’ – and had therefore arranged to meet for a coffee and cake a few days later to pick up where we had left off…

Time does not exist in any linear sense… This is all that I conclude from this.

If we are fully where we are at any given time, and reflect on the images and events around us, we will see ourselves therein – this is the only measure of time as we know it – do we recognise a cycle? Are we ‘here again’? – or does the landscape look different – or do we feel glad of the sameness and view it with delight, because we are living the life we truly want to be living.

I haven’t seen Phil in all that time, and in truth the wedding day of our mutual friends Steph and Nick – all that time ago – is the only time we have met.

But we immediately recognised a kindred spirit in one another then.

We sat beside one another at the wedding breakfast and then later on danced and talked – and then danced and talked some more – and I declared my heartfelt love for his open heart and his shining spirit.In being together again this weekend, it was evident that the connection is real and profound… So the time apart is not of importance; our relationship didn’t whither and die just because we didn’t spend time together….

In fact it has thrived. After we met we wrote to one another and acknowledged our appreciation of the meeting and of one another – then there was a natural space and we were not in touch…

Phil then ‘found me’ on linkedin…!

And on Saturday we journeyed through the portal, from our ‘electronic communication’, to meeting on a cold and wintery day at Finsbury Park Tube station – and we have been left with the delightful sense there is more to explore and create together…

It was a wonderful, funny, profundo, creative and celebratory time that we spent together…

There is no limit to love, it is expansive and all encompassing – Love is freedom.

If we do not feel free, it is not love.

Both in our relating and within ourselves.

If we love someone we let them go… In all senses of the word.

If we love ourselves we will free ourselves – and then of course it follows – that there will not be an ounce within us that would desire to hold onto another human being…

Phil is the author of ‘This is me, full stop.’ And this is the vlog we made together…

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In celebration of love, life and enduring friendship…

I love our ‘Larder’ London experiences, when we land in Winchmore hill we take up residency in the ‘The Larder’… Coffee shop life is the life for me, especially after 11 miles of running on a cold December morning!

We turned up on Michael’s doorstep in the first week he opened, two and a half years ago, and when we are here I feel that I don’t want to ever leave…

But I recognise this as an essential part of my energy, in that it is at home wherever it is… When I am there, I don’t want to be here, and when I am here I don’t want to be there.

And the person I am with is the person I want to be with more than anyone in the world; I start to miss them the moment we part… But then time does its magic thing, and expands and stretches and I live other lives with other people… Until our own unique orbit comes around again – and then it becomes evident that there is no separation, no gaps; that the connection, the love the dialogue is ongoing and endless.

And all of this occurs by opening up the space within us, that is silent and endless and limitless and true love itself… For true love embraces all and everything – and there is no limit to its capacity.

And this experience can only be found through an inner journey, which often looks like an outer one, as we delve in and in and in, through our experiences and relationships here on planet earth. It is necessary to live this life to discover our source, from where we have all come.

But of course it is not for us to rush ourselves or others. There can be no rush in an opening or a blossoming; or a remembering or a reclaiming. We must live and experience and work it all out, not through the mind for this is not possible… We work things out by first living them out, and after awhile, maybe many, many, many lives we start to see patterns and possibilities of transformation – and then we start to work it out, as we remember who we truly are.

Last night I had a wonderful evening with my friend Debbie… We met 25 years ago and after a few years, we used to say that we would treat ourselves to dinner at the OXO tower when we had ‘made it’ … We didn’t particularly identify what ‘making it’ was…

Debs was an aspiring young business woman – she is very courageous, innovative and determined – one of her business ideas was on Dragon’s Den! And she is now unequivocally a successful business woman… So that felt reason enough… We rejoiced too in our friendship of 25 years – and celebrated that after quite some ‘research’ and ‘investigation’, done with the hope that we would discover how to be in relationship with a man, where we were happy and didn’t want to leave…

That here we are… Enjoying that experience…

And so we decided now was the time… !

What fun we had… Delicious dinner in the OXO tower and then walking along the Southbank, me in my bare feet with sparkly jewels on, the walk way full of people and energy; through Borough market – and then up to floor 52 at the top of the Shard to drink cocktails… Celebrating love and life and enduring friendship… In allegedly one of the most prestigious cocktail bars in London

We left as a Lamborghini and a red Ferrari drew up – people living out and working out lifetimes on planet earth in all sorts of fascinating and varied ways .

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Run and become free…

Last night I dreamt lots of vivid dreams… I really enjoyed it, it felt a very interesting night time journey indeed.

I woke not remembering anything, other than that I had committed in my sleep to do more running, and therefore was henceforth not going to do anything much more than run.

My meditation on the move.

The thought of spending more time running is very agreeable… The more I run the more I become.

As Anadi and I ran along today, I mentioned that sometimes running feels rather hard, but that I recognise that setting running goals is very good for my path of spiritual clearing, and transcendence.

I also recognise that running barefoot is a process that is taking me further into myself… Or rather is helping me to let go of my self.

Anadi and I drove to Rincón de la Victoria to run today. It is the town where we stopped for lunch with Athena Jane on Wednesday. I was attracted back by the long beach and a vista that seemed to go on forever.

We ran 10 miles with ease and it felt to be a place I will return to… Soon I anticipate that my feet and my body will extend beyond the 10 and occasional 12 and 13 mile runs that I am doing frequently. I have only completed two 15 mile runs barefoot so far, but I can see the value of extending the distance now.

I can also feel how over many many years the clearing within me, is allowing me to simply run and become.

It is all I have ever really wanted to do, live a contemplative life, and run a lot!

Of course I have always ‘gone running’, but my bare feet seem to have ideas all of their own and have requested too that we run from the north to the south coast of Spain together next year…

Who knows what lies beyond that?

But I do see more and more that while I am journeying in physical form, enjoying the human journey; my spirit finds that the running road is a place of freedom, a place to let go…

A place where the madness and chaos of the matrix is stilled…

As the run progresses the body disappears and there arises the opportunity to recognise the samsara, the illusion that we exist in, and to know that we are so much more than anything we might ‘think’ we are…

The more I run, the more I become free… Ironically from any definition of myself; especially that of being a runner!

And yet I love to run, and so I will follow my dream… My night time dream of running as a way of life – and my waking dream of running to become free, and more me… Recognising that the transcendence that is occurring is opening me to an awareness that the me I defined myself by is vanishing…

We are all free already…

We are love, we are awareness; we are all born of consciousness and it isn’t through thinking ‘who are we..?’ that we discover we are so much more than we ‘thought’… It is simply through enquiring…

‘Who am I…’

 

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The road less travelled…

I like my Hilton home; It is very comfortable indeed. I love my 24 hour  gym, right on my doorstep. I love feeling warm all the time, the deep hot bath, and the huge bed with clean sheets.

It feels almost like my ‘checking in’ point; where Anadi and I return to get further instructions (mail) and new clothes, vitamin pills, (parcels) anything that might be needed for our next mission…

We are given warmth and comfort, and food in any many of restaurants to choose from in the airport, and the hotel itself… And then off we go for our next adventure!

Given that we are often in sunny climes, this might all appear rather strange… But as we tend to like warm countries out of season, where the evenings and nights are colder, and the buildings are not really set up for cold… They are more designed to keep cool in extreme heat.

There is something about the nomadic life for me that lends itself to always being open, never the opportunity to sink into any illusion…

When I was running today, I reflected on how running training – or any practising – is the absolute metaphor for the path disappearing behind us; and reminds that we make our path in life by walking it.

When a musician stands on stage and performs in an awe inspiring way, we do not see him or her trail onto stage with them, the hours and hours and hours of practise; all of that has vanished like the wake that the boat leaves, which vanishes – and the musician stands transparent on the stage.

Yesterday I added up the miles I had run over the past 20 weeks – because I have recorded them each day I was able to do this – to discover that for 20 weeks I have averaged 48 miles of barefoot running a week… All of it has vanished, but through running the path, it has revealed itself to me in the form of increased fitness, and new directions…

Along the way, ‘Barefoot Across Spain’ emerged as my bare steps became stronger and more and more adventurous…

I am on the train to Lewes, it is a sparkling bright sunny November day…. I recognise glorious Sussex and the many happy years I spent here, the Downs flash by, sun glinting through the orange brown golden trees; how I love this land… How I treasure the miles I covered on those green hills; the path I made by running them has brought me here and I cannot turn back, nor do I desire to; i treasure the road of of my life unfolding

Later…

I have just spent a wonderful time in Lewes… It is a town I know so well – I have spent a lot of time in coffee shops there right back from the late 80’s when I first moved to the area…

I can remember Bill’s restaurant when it was a small fruit and veg shop with a few tables for wonderful coffee and cake; we watched it expand, my friends and I, when we met there over the weeks months and years – to a much bigger coffee shop and now of course Bill’s can be found in towns all over Britain…

Going back to the same place and seeing the changes is an interesting experience. I know the streets and I know the feel of the place; some of it is unchanged, some of it is expanding, growing, developing…

but I was aware of a newness, as if I was there for the first time. New – yet the same – a huge history of time spent and yet only the moment.

I spent a wonderful lunch time with Kathy and then coffee with Ange… Two people who I met at almost the same time…

Many years ago – almost twenty – here we are with all those shared years and we meet now, all joining in a project – Barefoot Across Spain…!

The fact that I am barefoot now seems entirely natural to us all… I arrived at Lewes Station in my sparkling jangley barefoot sandals given to me by my friend Fi- on a bright crisp, quite cold November day… Kathy scooped me up and admired by sparkly feet and whisked me to lunch in Pelham house, a beautiful refined hotel, delightful delicious dining…

Kathy is the chair of Friends of Sussex Hospices and over the years I have witnessed the amazing work she has done; but also the fun she has generated in the projects and her heart… Her heart has been at the centre of all she does, and I am delighted to be sharing in a project with her…  And my bare feet lead the way!

I now have no discomfort within me now when I wander the land barefoot; it is the path I am treading and it is opening huge vistas of untrod lands to me, and meeting with Kathy and Ange highlighted the friendship and love I am receiving on my road less travelled…

Ange and I have been meeting in the Real Eating Company for the past 15 years… We have a tradition of eating almond croissant with our coffee… It is part of our meet up – and I have not discovered almond croissants to compare outside the UK – yet!

But I enjoy it as something I do in the UK and always with Ange – like the tostadas y aceite are a part of what I do in Spain.

Food and connection to the land we are in, to the people there and to each other, is one of the joyous ways we humans connect and share and have fun!

Eating and drinking, loving and laughing together all over the world.

 

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We are all meant to shine…

If I had wanted to draw attention to myself, I have certainly discovered the way!

Especially as we woke to another wild wet day and therefore the people on the ferry were the first to look aghast, or interested and curious as I padded happily across the wet car deck – it wasn’t cold at all…

And then again in the airport, the looks ranged from taking note, to smiley fun connection, to surprise, to ‘bravo’ to shock…

It is no wonder my feet have become stars in themselves; entities with characters all of their own, who love to be seen and show off to the camera, every time it points their way!

The funny thing is, throughout my life, if anything, I have shied away from the beam this energy of mine shines to herald my presence…

This may not be very evident to those who know me, and the unstoppable life force that flows from me and has often got me the attention I claim not to want! ?

But paradoxically my feet shedding their ‘clothes’ has forced me into my own limelight – where I too am standing exposed and naked – and asked that I stay where they are stepping; that I follow and simply travel the path I am making as I run wherever it leads me…

Because I don’t truly have a plan; although of course running all over the world in my bare feet is a sort of plan… But because I have no firm plan – then more than ever I am asked to trust my new world with no defining name to give myself…

Ha ha… except of course I am now the barefoot runner, the barefoot guru and even the barefoot beauty…!

But I do not ‘identify myself’ with any of them… And this is the freedom.

I have no definition I give myself, because in our world we often project onto one another some sort of definition, to make some sort of meaning to our world and our relationships…

But how wonderful if we stopped ‘defining’ ourselves in any way, and instead simply stayed with the expression of ourselves, our soul in motion in every moment… That we trust that the ordinary is the extraordinary now and now and now….

That we trust the magnificence of our true nature, our unique aspect of the whole, that is shining bright all the time if we would allow it… How wonderful to all allow ourselves to the in our own limelight and see what happens next…

For it is not our darkness of which we are truly afraid, we are often comfortable with the pain, the blocks, the cycles of repetitive stuff; but what if we shed all that and stood in our own transparent naked step and revealed our light to the world.

As Marianne Williamson writes…

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness
That most frightens us.

We ask ourselves
Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God.

Your playing small
Does not serve the world.
There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking
So that other people won’t feel insecure around you.

We are all meant to shine,
As children do.
We were born to make manifest
The glory of God that is within us.

It’s not just in some of us;
It’s in everyone.

And as we let our own light shine,
We unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.
As we’re liberated from our own fear,
Our presence automatically liberates others.

 

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There is no rush…

Today I went for another treatment with Gerhard and noticed how willing my being and body was to surrender another layer of the tension – of the holding – which shows up in the left side of my body …

I have been clearing the restriction here for thirty years now…
And I have come to see that my body has only let go when it’s been ready to let go…We can only resolve when we are ready to resolve – and before that, however strange it might seem – we might be here to live out the drama or tension and experience this our life this way. It might be the only way we can let go – to first experience the opposite…

 

To experience  joy we might need to know sorrow deeply and well. To experience  ease we might need to feel dis ease…
And as Gerhard said the body needs to open and to melt – and it is the whole being that must give…
There was a time when I had a lot of stories to go with the process in my left side – and these were an important part of the inner clearing work for me…

 

I needed to understand and get insight through my mind …
But of course this is limited, and in truth has the potential to keep the pain stuck in the body and the being as we can ‘become’ the story of our pain, both physical and emotional…

 

We can become more and more interested in the process, and the patterns and the insights – but in the end there comes a time to just ‘let it all go.’

 

Nowadays I don’t have much of a story, although when Gerhard does the initial clearing process he does ask questions. These are not to be in dialogue with him about – but for our own self inquiry and shattering of the old patterns – but the images and ideas that arise are fleeting and purely help with the immediate accessing; and now I can’t really remember them…

 

But I could feel a further releasing occurring and part of me feels I would like to go every single day!

 

Gerhard and I made a vlog together and I asked him about living on Gozo. He told me that it is a space for him to come back to himself; that there are no distractions and so he must be with himself and listen to his inner voice to his heart – with nothing to take him outside of himself…
He emphasised it is necessary for us all… To eventually return to ourselves and to be with ourselves…

 

This is the journey we are all on – but there is no rush… Things of the spirit happen in their own time.

 

We cannot rush it anymore than we can rush the turning of the tide…