Coming Home to Myself

I had an amazing 2 days on my way to England to surprise my brother for his 60th birthday.

I had planned to make the journey as easy as possible and as I was flying from an airport 100 miles from home, decided to stay the night before the flight with a friend who lives on the way to the airport.

I was travelling on a road I don’t usually travel on – so when my low fuel light began flashing, I wasn’t sure where the next petrol station was. So I  decided to  follow my inner guidance about when to stop at a garage to fill the tank – as I approached  a turn off into a village, I would check in to see if it felt better to keep going or to turn off and look for a petrol station. As I reached the 1 kilometer sign at the end of the motorway – where I knew for certain there was a petrol station – the car gently came to a halt at the side of the road.

This led to me hitching down the motorway to find a garage , clambering down the embankment and over 2 big fences to get back to the car  and put in the diesel I’d bought – and the car still wouldn’t start. I was on a towed to a garage and the car was re-started. All the time (well, maybe not all the time, but a lot), I was saying to myself “Everyone everywhere wants to help me” and “everything always works out for me”. I met amazingly kind and helpful people  - people who went out of their way to help me.

Anyway – the car went great, and I continued my journey to stay in Galway City at my friend’s apartment.
I went out at 8.30 am to try the car and it started easily. I wasn’t ready to leave then. So went and had breakfast and came down again to leave at 10am – the car wouldn’t start!! ( Again – I was saying “Everyone everywhere wants to help me – as I waited and waited) Again I had to be towed to the garage – the mechanics were great and worked on it straight away. They’d had a car with the same problem recently had spent a few days working out what the problem was – so they knew what to do straight away. But it took a while. I was really feeling thankful to the other car owner who had the same trouble – she had to return to the garage three times, before they sorted out what it was – and that experience, really helped the mechanics diagnose what mine needed very quickly. It really brought home to me, how we never know how our experience will affect other people.
As the car fired up and was ready to drive, I was still in Galway, 60 miles from the airport on country roads, at the time I’d thought I’d be at the airport already checked in.
I started the drive and was quite calm and finding the feeling of landing safely and picking up the  hire car when I arrived at my destination and driving to my brother’s house. But as I got stuck behind slow cars and the minutes ticked away – I could feel the panic rising. I let that be okay. And when I passed the check in time and was still on the road – I gave up and let whatever happened happen. (I’d half done that a few times – but this time I really did it!) I knew I’d done all I could, and if I didn’t make the flight, I didn’t and that would be okay, in ways I may not know.
I was flying Ryanair who have the reputation for being rigid when it comes to checking in late. As I ran into the terminal – I was saying “Everyone, everywhere wants to help me”. I encountered THE most helpful man on the Ryanair desk, who let me through with only 15 mins before the flight was due to depart!!!  He gave me a little telling off and a warning, but he let me through……….A miracle.

When I boarded the plane, I was ushered into one of the reserved seats at the front with lots of leg room. Normally, I’m a bit of a nervous flyer but this was a magnificent flight over a bed of fluffy white clouds.

Everyone I met on my adventure was so helpful and friendly and really did want to help me.

The Communion of Light have been talking for a while about that feeling of “everyone, everywhere wants to help me”.  I have been playing with the vibration of it in various ways over the last few months and easing into it – and finding  more and more experience of it being true. Even when things are happening that I don’t like, it is true. This recent experience has given me a very powerful experience of it in my reality, and I can feel that it is true for me now in ways I hadn’t realised before.

We’ve been having a lot of cold and windy weather here this winter and early Spring, and it makes it more difficult to get out and about outside. Having two dogs, I’m lucky, that they get me out every day in all weathers – but when it’s windy I’m more likely to cut the walk short. Although, last week I did have the best windy walk I’ve had for a long time. I was on the beach with the dogs and we battled our way against the wind up the beach – feeling invigorated but a bit of struggle. When we turned around to come back, the wind caught me from behind and pushed me along, so that I couldn’t stop running. It was SO much fun – I was laughing and giggling and felt like a young child again, with the pure joy of it. it was the best walk ever (until the next best one!).

Anyway, that was a bit of a digression from what I sat down to write about – which is my day out in my camper van, and the insights I took from it.

I have a camper van which I love. She was named Sweet Mayo (after a county in Ireland, not mayonnaise!) by her previous owners, and I have carried that on, though I usually shorten it to Sweet May. The whole story of how I got her from Ebay, is one of following what felt better and things falling into place so easily. One of the things that felt better, and I am sure a lot of people will understand, was not talking with my  partner about getting her until after I’d pressed the Pay button!! I just knew it was the right thing to do – I knew I’d been looking for one just like this for a long time, I knew that person selling it sounded really honest and trustworthy from what he had written and I just knew that this van would be a friend for life! I also thought that my partner is much more knowledgable about mechanics and engines and things than I am and would be asking lots of questions and the auction would be over  and we wouldn’t have bought her. So I bought her a great price and then woke my partner up to tell him!! He was a bit surprised and shocked – but loves her as much as I do.

Sweet May’s first overnight in Fanore

Much as I love her, it’s a challenge for me to drive her. No, that’s not true – it’s a challenge for me to anticipate driving her – when I actually get behind the wheel I love it. She was made in 1988 and doesn’t have power steering, so can be a bit  hard to manoeuvre in small spaces, and she’s also bigger and heavier than things I am used to to driving. But she’s also higher up, so I have great views and she is very reliable and steady. So, I do plan ahead a bit with her – like arriving at the beach early in the summer, so it won’t be too crowded when I’m looking to park.

I have been wanting to bring her down to the beach for a few weeks, but it has been way too windy for her. Being high sided, she hits the wind more, and I really don’t enjoy driving like that. I’d seen on the forecast that Friday looked like the stillest, clearest day for going this week, so I planned to got then, and I told a few  friends I’d be going down to the beach if they wanted to come and hang out. During Thursday I could feel myself getting more anxious about going and realised that I was thinking of things that might go wrong and thinking of reasons why it may not work out to go. And I could also feel that I was feeling pressure to go because I had told other people I was going – not pressure from them, but from my thoughts about it, and what it meant if I didn’t go.

So, I eventually realised that it felt better not to have planned to go, but to just see how I felt on Friday and take it step by step. So I let the friends know I wasn’t sure if I would go or not – which was of course, totally fine with them. I didn’t do a lot of the preparations I often do for the first trip of the Spring – like cleaning her and preparing food etc – none of that felt better. I just relaxed about it.

Friday morning came, and it was still and sunny. I did my normal morning things and then could feel I was thinking that it would indeed be great to bring Sweet May to the beach. Then I could feel myself putting another familiar obstacle in place. Whether to bring the dogs or not?? I love my dogs – but driving them on my own in the van isn’t great and neither is it very relaxing to have them with me all day at the beach – they get way too excited!! But I was feeling guilty about leaving them and denying them a long walk on the beach. But I knew it felt better not to bring them. So I brought them for a walk around here. Then it felt better to leave them. So I got into the van to leave – did no preparations, brought no food and didn’t tell anyone – and that all felt so much better.

I arrived at the beach much later than I usually do – about 1pm. A I was driving down, I was setting the intention that it would be easy to park when I arrived – but way better than that – the very best parking spot in the whole car park was empty when I got there!!! Unheard of at the time, even at this time of year!! It has a great view of the sea and is extra wide for camper vans.

It felt so good to be there. When I arrived, it took me about 5 mins to do a quick clean up and polish all the surfaces and then I texted people to let them know I was there. Everything worked in perfect timings. The fish and chip shop was open  - which was unexpected – so we had chips and hot tea snug inside, while watching the sea. There is nothing like it!!

And I had the great experience of following what felt better, and breaking plans if that felt better, and letting things sort themselves out in the best possible way and the most enjoyable, relaxed way. I know that if I had stuck to going because it was what I had told people I was doing, or because I had planned it and had better stick to my word (both things I am have definitely done in the past)  - things probably would not have been so perfect and relaxed for all of us.  And I got back home in time to bring the dogs for another walk – so we were all happy!!

Setting sun at Lahinch.

I have just started knitting again in the last year, after a break of many years. I’m really enjoying it and have been doing some fun, small projects, which are quick easy and bring lots of satisfaction all round.

I started by doing a couple of doggie coats for friends who have Bijon’s for Christmas.

Roxy in her Christmas jumper.

and then, when she heard I was knitting an aunt requested a tea cosy – that was really fun to knit, and much easier than it looks. It was so nice, I did one for us too.

Tea cosy for Auntie Iseult

Anyway, the knitting brought me to crocheting – which I haven’t done since make blanket squares and shawls back in my hippy days in the 70′s!! But I’d seen someone wearing a really pretty small shawl – just a shoulder warmer really and I thought it would be really nice for the summer. I remembered some lovely blue cotton yarn that I had  - from when I started knitting a cardigan for my niece’s baby when she was pregnant – her daughter is 13 now and the jumper still not finished!!! – so I thought I would rip that and make the shawl. As you can probably tell, I’m a bit of a hoarder, so I also remembered I had the pattern I used in the 70′s to make shawls before – which amazingly, I managed to find.

I started crocheting – and with the help of Youtube – the stitches were coming back to me. But reading the pattern was another thing. I must have started and unripped the shawl at least 10 times, as it  emerged from my hands looking pretty and interesting, but never remotely like it was going to be a shawl!! But, I knew I’d do it – and was feeling relaxed and thinking  thoughts like “I know I can do this” “I’ll work it out”  etc.

I searched Google looking for help, but couldn’t find what I needed. The it came to me this morning, that there was probably a group of crocheters somewhere on Facebook, who would probably help me. I searched and found a very helpful looking community.

And then the thing that really interested me and was an Aha moment happened. I was typing in my question – and had to get very specific about what I wanted to know, so was really thinking it through as I was typing. And that was when it became very clear to me how to do it. I’d asked a clear question, and my inner guidance gave me a nudge – and what had confused me became clear. I’ve now started it and it is building up very easily to be just what I was wanting.

And having that insight about getting very clear on what I am asking – and knowing the answer is always there – is such a bonus.

And this picture is totally irrelevant, but a bonus, just because I love it!!!

The beach on Christmas Eve