Sunday, October 23, 2005
Surrender, Trust & Gratitude: Part One.
Oh my how I blather on about this. I even run an entire workshop with this as the title. As if I know something about it! Well the Universe has a way of calling your bluff should you be foolish enough to start to pontificate. I have just had a serious knuckle-rapping on the theme of surrender, trust and gratitude. So here is the tale of Ms. Spiritual Big-Shot and her journey to Egypt:
London Heathrow to Milan
One of the many oddities about my recent trip to Egypt was that the group that I travelled and worked with were all from South Africa. This meant that I was the only group member travelling to Egypt from the northern hemisphere. I had to make my own travel arrangements to Cairo. I arranged to arrive at Cairo airport at 14.15 hrs on October 4th where I was to meet with a representative from the travel company (Nile Travel) who would then take me to my hotel near the airport. The group from South Africa were due to arrive in Cairo at 4.00am on the following day. I would be taken to meet them and we would all immediately take a domestic flight south to Aswan and then board the Nile cruiser to sail north again.
I was concerned about these travel arrangements because, aware that I would be arriving alone, I felt the need to have all the Ts crossed and Is dotted to cover possible problems. I was especially concerned about having a contingency plan in place in the event that the travel rep. was not there to meet me. I had been quite pedantic about this with the travel agent before leaving yet still felt that I did not have the full details of where my hotel was and how to contact someone should I need help in Cairo.
So the day arrived and the taxi got me to Heathrow (only about 20mins away) for 04.20hrs. I was flying with the Italian airline Alitalia and my flight was in two stages, the first being from London to Milan, due to leave at 06.00hrs. I would have a short space of about one hour and a half to transfer in Milan to the flight to Cairo. All seemed to be going very well until I got to the boarding gate. It was announced that there was a problem with the aircraft. As the clock ticked down I began to get very concerned that I was going to miss the connecting flight in Milan. This was not a good scenario for several reasons including the fact that the next flight to Cairo was around 23.30hrs. Would I be able to get through to someone at the travel agency in Cairo to warn them that I was going to be arriving 12 hours later than arranged? Would anyone be there to meet me at 2.30am? And so my mind went from possibility to possibility and from contingency plan to contingency plan. But there was nothing at all that I could do except wait. So I waited. As I waited I wondered. This was not a good start to the trip. What was going on here? Surely I was taking the trip I was meant to take? I was clear that this was so for lots of reasons. So why was it immediately difficult? For goodness sake I hadn’t even left the country yet and I was having problems. It didn’t seem quite fair to me.
Finally we took off from London, horribly late. It seemed impossible to me that I would catch the connecting flight as planned. I asked the steward about it and he gave me a glimmer of hope as he explained that the flight from Milan to Cairo might well be delayed as well, so not to give up. I wondered though how there would be time to transfer my luggage from hold to hold. He seemed to think there was a possibility that it might work out and this was quite comforting. But it was not a relaxed flight for me. Once again I was busily engaged in making plans for a variety of scenarios.
We landed in Milan at just about the exact moment the Cairo plane should have been trundling down the runway. I got off the plane as quickly as possible but then had to wait for the whole plane to empty as we had to get into a wretched coach. The coach took us miles across the airport until finally I was able to shove my way past everyone and beetle off to the transfer gates. To my astonishment and delight the Cairo plane was still boarding according to the information screens. Not really believing I would make it I never the less ran with renewed vigour. Amazingly I found a coach still waiting at the boarding gate while some sort of drama was in progress between the lady checking us in and an elderly Arab lady. What luck! I now began to relax. I was going to get the flight after all. Phew.
The next thing that happened was far too extraordinary to be simply a co-incidence. I got off the coach by the front steps to the aircraft. Alitalia give names to their planes and I saw at this point that the plane was called “Piazza di San Francesco Assisi”. I stood there totally stunned with tears welling up in my eyes. Some of you reading this will understand at once why this had such an effect on me. For those who are wondering, Saint Francis of Assisi is very important to those of us who are members of the Beloved Community. www.emissaryoflight.com We often focus on the prayer of St. Francis (“O lord make me an instrument of your peace….”) and his philosophy: to bring peace to all and where necessary to use words, is the philosophy of a Minister of Spiritual Peacemaking. There’s more if you want to look on the above website. However not only this but also Kuthumi, the Ascended Master channelled by the trip leader Michelle, also manifested as St. Francis. I had given up the chance to go on a Beloved Community retreat in Assisi (which had taken place just about 2 weeks before my Egypt trip) in order to go where I was most called at the time. I had been really sad to miss this and had heard all about the trip from my friends before I left London. I felt the plane being named after St. Francis was such a confirmation that I was following the right path.
As I sat on the plane I mused on the message of confirmation I was being given here. I also realised with a jolt that the male and female energies that had been with me the previous week during meditations and healings were St. Francis and St. Clare. OK yes, I realise this sounds a bit nuts but welcome to my world. I had been avoiding personifying or naming these energies but despite this had a very clear visual image of them. Once the obvious hit me I realised I was in for a very powerful trip. But I still wasn’t quite getting it. When you don’t quite get it the Universe will repeat the message louder and louder until you do get it. And so it was.
Cairo
This was my first trip to the continent of Africa and so Cairo was inevitably rather a culture shock. Looking from the plane as we circled before landing I was struck by several things. Especially striking to me was the fact that Cairo is built in the desert. There is sand and wasteland right up to the edge of the city. Also the city is huge and sprawling with hundreds and hundreds of identical apartment blocks. On stepping off the plane I was struck by the smell first of all. I have no idea what it was but it was a new smell for me and rather unsettling. The next thing I noticed was the surprising humidity, I had expected dry heat.
Oh joy! There was a guy holding a piece of paper with my name scrawled upon it. I had convinced myself he would not be there. He was extremely efficient and guided me through passport control and immigration. I met up with him at the baggage reclaim carousel. I was not really expecting to see my bag and I was not disappointed. Of course it wasn’t on the plane. How could it have been? In my heart I’d known it would not be on the flight but I was still really unhappy when it did not come off the carousel. I was now plunged into a maelstrom of lost bag procedure. These situations are never easy when you are feeling tired so I went as slowly and carefully as possible, trying all the while to anticipate where mistakes or misunderstandings might happen. The next flight from Milan was due to arrive about 02.30hrs. Hopefully my bag would be on this flight because I was due to leave my hotel at 04.00hrs. I did not like this arrangement at all. It seemed to me to be highly unlikely that my bag would catch up with me before I flew to Aswan, assuming it was even on the next flight. I was not happy.
I was taken to my hotel where I had to buy some essential toiletries and a t-shirt and swimming costume. I was so tired and stressed that I didn’t quite realise the extent to which I was ripped off for these until later. I tried to settle myself down by going for a swim. The only costume that was my size was truly hideous. Desperate as I was I bought it anyway and swam up and down the hotel pool, a symphony in fluorescent pink. Presumably I left a pink slick behind me as once the costume got wet it bled pink dye everywhere! Welcome to Egypt Sue!
Coming soon: Part Two, My Dark Night of the Soul! Suddenly it all makes sense.
London Heathrow to Milan
One of the many oddities about my recent trip to Egypt was that the group that I travelled and worked with were all from South Africa. This meant that I was the only group member travelling to Egypt from the northern hemisphere. I had to make my own travel arrangements to Cairo. I arranged to arrive at Cairo airport at 14.15 hrs on October 4th where I was to meet with a representative from the travel company (Nile Travel) who would then take me to my hotel near the airport. The group from South Africa were due to arrive in Cairo at 4.00am on the following day. I would be taken to meet them and we would all immediately take a domestic flight south to Aswan and then board the Nile cruiser to sail north again.
I was concerned about these travel arrangements because, aware that I would be arriving alone, I felt the need to have all the Ts crossed and Is dotted to cover possible problems. I was especially concerned about having a contingency plan in place in the event that the travel rep. was not there to meet me. I had been quite pedantic about this with the travel agent before leaving yet still felt that I did not have the full details of where my hotel was and how to contact someone should I need help in Cairo.
So the day arrived and the taxi got me to Heathrow (only about 20mins away) for 04.20hrs. I was flying with the Italian airline Alitalia and my flight was in two stages, the first being from London to Milan, due to leave at 06.00hrs. I would have a short space of about one hour and a half to transfer in Milan to the flight to Cairo. All seemed to be going very well until I got to the boarding gate. It was announced that there was a problem with the aircraft. As the clock ticked down I began to get very concerned that I was going to miss the connecting flight in Milan. This was not a good scenario for several reasons including the fact that the next flight to Cairo was around 23.30hrs. Would I be able to get through to someone at the travel agency in Cairo to warn them that I was going to be arriving 12 hours later than arranged? Would anyone be there to meet me at 2.30am? And so my mind went from possibility to possibility and from contingency plan to contingency plan. But there was nothing at all that I could do except wait. So I waited. As I waited I wondered. This was not a good start to the trip. What was going on here? Surely I was taking the trip I was meant to take? I was clear that this was so for lots of reasons. So why was it immediately difficult? For goodness sake I hadn’t even left the country yet and I was having problems. It didn’t seem quite fair to me.
Finally we took off from London, horribly late. It seemed impossible to me that I would catch the connecting flight as planned. I asked the steward about it and he gave me a glimmer of hope as he explained that the flight from Milan to Cairo might well be delayed as well, so not to give up. I wondered though how there would be time to transfer my luggage from hold to hold. He seemed to think there was a possibility that it might work out and this was quite comforting. But it was not a relaxed flight for me. Once again I was busily engaged in making plans for a variety of scenarios.
We landed in Milan at just about the exact moment the Cairo plane should have been trundling down the runway. I got off the plane as quickly as possible but then had to wait for the whole plane to empty as we had to get into a wretched coach. The coach took us miles across the airport until finally I was able to shove my way past everyone and beetle off to the transfer gates. To my astonishment and delight the Cairo plane was still boarding according to the information screens. Not really believing I would make it I never the less ran with renewed vigour. Amazingly I found a coach still waiting at the boarding gate while some sort of drama was in progress between the lady checking us in and an elderly Arab lady. What luck! I now began to relax. I was going to get the flight after all. Phew.
The next thing that happened was far too extraordinary to be simply a co-incidence. I got off the coach by the front steps to the aircraft. Alitalia give names to their planes and I saw at this point that the plane was called “Piazza di San Francesco Assisi”. I stood there totally stunned with tears welling up in my eyes. Some of you reading this will understand at once why this had such an effect on me. For those who are wondering, Saint Francis of Assisi is very important to those of us who are members of the Beloved Community. www.emissaryoflight.com We often focus on the prayer of St. Francis (“O lord make me an instrument of your peace….”) and his philosophy: to bring peace to all and where necessary to use words, is the philosophy of a Minister of Spiritual Peacemaking. There’s more if you want to look on the above website. However not only this but also Kuthumi, the Ascended Master channelled by the trip leader Michelle, also manifested as St. Francis. I had given up the chance to go on a Beloved Community retreat in Assisi (which had taken place just about 2 weeks before my Egypt trip) in order to go where I was most called at the time. I had been really sad to miss this and had heard all about the trip from my friends before I left London. I felt the plane being named after St. Francis was such a confirmation that I was following the right path.
As I sat on the plane I mused on the message of confirmation I was being given here. I also realised with a jolt that the male and female energies that had been with me the previous week during meditations and healings were St. Francis and St. Clare. OK yes, I realise this sounds a bit nuts but welcome to my world. I had been avoiding personifying or naming these energies but despite this had a very clear visual image of them. Once the obvious hit me I realised I was in for a very powerful trip. But I still wasn’t quite getting it. When you don’t quite get it the Universe will repeat the message louder and louder until you do get it. And so it was.
Cairo
This was my first trip to the continent of Africa and so Cairo was inevitably rather a culture shock. Looking from the plane as we circled before landing I was struck by several things. Especially striking to me was the fact that Cairo is built in the desert. There is sand and wasteland right up to the edge of the city. Also the city is huge and sprawling with hundreds and hundreds of identical apartment blocks. On stepping off the plane I was struck by the smell first of all. I have no idea what it was but it was a new smell for me and rather unsettling. The next thing I noticed was the surprising humidity, I had expected dry heat.
Oh joy! There was a guy holding a piece of paper with my name scrawled upon it. I had convinced myself he would not be there. He was extremely efficient and guided me through passport control and immigration. I met up with him at the baggage reclaim carousel. I was not really expecting to see my bag and I was not disappointed. Of course it wasn’t on the plane. How could it have been? In my heart I’d known it would not be on the flight but I was still really unhappy when it did not come off the carousel. I was now plunged into a maelstrom of lost bag procedure. These situations are never easy when you are feeling tired so I went as slowly and carefully as possible, trying all the while to anticipate where mistakes or misunderstandings might happen. The next flight from Milan was due to arrive about 02.30hrs. Hopefully my bag would be on this flight because I was due to leave my hotel at 04.00hrs. I did not like this arrangement at all. It seemed to me to be highly unlikely that my bag would catch up with me before I flew to Aswan, assuming it was even on the next flight. I was not happy.
I was taken to my hotel where I had to buy some essential toiletries and a t-shirt and swimming costume. I was so tired and stressed that I didn’t quite realise the extent to which I was ripped off for these until later. I tried to settle myself down by going for a swim. The only costume that was my size was truly hideous. Desperate as I was I bought it anyway and swam up and down the hotel pool, a symphony in fluorescent pink. Presumably I left a pink slick behind me as once the costume got wet it bled pink dye everywhere! Welcome to Egypt Sue!
Coming soon: Part Two, My Dark Night of the Soul! Suddenly it all makes sense.
