My original spiritual memoir republished as ebook and paperback in most countries on Amazon

Tags

escape the matrix, healing, meditation, spirituality

My new book now out as an ebook on Amazon

Tags

escape the matrix, spirituality

Sex, Drugs and Meditation

Tags

spiritual awakening, Spiritual books, spiritual enlightenment, Spiritual experience, spiritual healing, Spiritual journey, spiritual memoir, Spiritual practice, spirituality

What does it feel like to have a spiritual awakening?

What does it feel like to explore the edges of one’s consciousness and sanity?

What do you do next?

Sometimes it felt like the sky was splitting open and sometimes I fell into a state of bliss while staring at leaves. Sometimes I went on extraordinary journeys from within my own living room.

But I spent at least as much time reflecting on and managing the tasks of day to day living and workplace relationships; using everyday life as a vehicle for spiritual growth. Feeling my everyday life infused by this newfound spirituality, and learning to find my own way and read the signs of the universe for myself.

At the same time managing feelings of depression, anxiety and OCD and eventually seeking therapy, the lessons of which are shared here.

Experimenting with religion but ultimately not finding a home there. With my husband, experimenting with different philosophies and spiritual practices, including giving up sex and orgasms. Stretching my mind to the edges of sanity and insanity, or at least, that’s what it felt like sometimes.

This collection, of blog posts and spiritual memoirs, charts a journey of spiritual exploration and self reflection which eventually led to us breaking away from routine, security and family expectations, and selling up and going off on an actual one year trip to India and Southeast Asia, documented in my travel memoir I fell in love with you and I cried.

I want to go to Mars

Tags

awareness, elon musk, spiritual awakening, spirituality, Work

What I mean by spirituality is perhaps more of a coming to consciousness. And to quote the often quoted Jung quote, ‘Enlightenment isn’t about imagining figures of light, it’s about making the darkness conscious.’ Which means it isn’t always the bliss moments; it’s also a sudden awareness of horror, sadness, personal mistakes, regrets, pain, times when we accidentally caused pain to loved ones, and so on.

Becoming suddenly sensitive- the pitchfork photograph jumped out from the newspaper, me suddenly seeing gardening as an act of violence, tearing up the habitat of all the tiny animals and insects. (I am a big fan of No Mow May, Let it Bloom June, and just letting gardens go wild so that they become filled with the sound of insects, rather than the silence of a perfect lawn. Worse still, Astroturf, which kills everything beneath it.)

Reflections that make us better, or intend to be better, e.g. realising that I dragged my husband out on a walk with me even though he had sore feet and we should have just gone back.

This awareness also includes moments out of nowhere of total spiritual resonance, listening to Park Life by Blur and understanding it in a completely new way, not just a laddish story of drinking in the park, as I used to think of it, but of how a moment of mindfulness, in this case, feeding the pigeons, can stay with you and sustain you all day; which was actually something I had been thinking about only days before. Another 90s/00s anthem: ‘Once you know where you’re going, you can lay back and enjoy the ride, soak in the sights and drowning the senses…’ also resonated strongly.

In a flush of oversharing I had given two people books at Christmas, including my very personal spiritual memoir, and then later regretted it when it was returned only partially read. So I was really unsure when I felt like giving out books at work again, this time my travel memoir. I had told K about it, he had said he’d like to read it, and I know he’s interested in writing. And I’d had a big chat with F re travelling and she’d seemed interested. But still. I waited until almost my last day. I had to go and find K, make a real effort, ask him to bring his bag so he could put it straight in to take home. He said, ‘I have something for you too. It came into my head to give it to you but then I thought it was too mad and I wasn’t going to give it to you, but when you said you had something for me I thought, ‘’I have to now, that’s fate.’’ It was a perfectly good phone, Android like I am used to, in a case, with a charger. Mine had died just a couple of days before.

Elon Musk said when he was six people thought he was mad. He loved Sci Fi. He thought, What am I going to do with my life, for it to have meaning? Try and go to Mars. To have the self belief and determination to follow such an outlandish path having come from such a freakish base- being thought mad at six years old. Please let us not get stuck on Elon Musk, I know some people may not like him. It’s not about him and what he’s doing, it’s more about how can we do that within our own lives.

I was teased at school, felt like an outsider, an outcast at times. Can I go from that to believing that I can do something completely unique to me and in total accordance with my own values, in alignment with my own interests and talents?

Is it a quest, that we drop down into this world, everything set up for conformity right from the first days at school, peers, teachers. Creative thinking not encouraged, no real philosophical tuition. Teased, put down, alienated. But if you can rise above that, dare to be different, survive and then decide to do something totally mind blowing and say it with absolute confidence and work all day and all night to make it happen. Well maybe the reward for that is to see it. I want to go to Mars.

 

That sense of being in the present moment, of being on a different path, feeling my way along a totally different path, Journey to the East. At times at work I felt alienated like I did at school. But towards the end, when I really felt like myself, when I had done a workshop and made my plans to leave and do this independently, when I felt fantastic and full of confidence, they liked me just as much. More, really. Encouragement from all sides. Lovely words at my leaving do. A spiritual gift. 

The reward of nothingness, as I’ve called it before; The realisation that we are all doing our best or at least we are all navigating life in the only way we feel able to. You do the best you can with the information and abilities you have at the time. Okay so some people don’t do their best, they just do. Then again, who amongst us really does our best, every day, every hour?

Accepting that we’re just like everybody else. Which goes against the human urge to separate and judge. And as well as all that, to realise that not every problem can be solved. As I saw on Instagram the other day, ‘If you can’t seem to solve it, maybe it’s not a problem to be solved but just something to be accepted.’ Again, this goes against human nature to overcome and master problems rather than simply accept them. But trying to accept something you can’t fix does feel like work, is work.

So we come face to face with these facts. The realisation that the work, the place to get to, isn’t a place at all but a realisation: That what you do each day is the thing, the task and the lesson. It’s both much better and much worse than you hoped. What you do is very important as well as not important at all. How you respond is the lesson. Stepping outside of the day to day to see things as they are, and then going back in. The emptiness at the end of the road.

Life imitating art, or at least the news; there’d been a story on the BBC about how a discarded carrier bag with a photo of a lion on it had caused panic about a lion. Then John came into the spare room where we were sleeping and saw this koala bag and thought for a split second it was his mum’s dog on the bed.

My fleecy zip breaking, at the same time my mum giving me a fleecy a friend had passed onto her, that is just right, better, even, as it is big and baggy, and now that we no longer have cats it’s no problem having a black fleecy.

And, Aldi car park gets very busy. I was prepared to go out again and park on the road and manage the shopping somehow. I knew I wouldn’t want to reverse into a difficult space. And then there right in front of me was an easy space, easy to drive straight into and get out of. I didn’t visualise or even hope for it, yet it still happened. ‘I want what I need,’ as Robert from Switzerland (a remarkable person we met in India) said, re conjuring up things he needed.

Life update:

We have moved back to Northamptonshire. I am setting up relaxation/wellbeing classes.

Instagram rachel_hill_relaxation

When things fall apart/Letter to Flower

Tags

India, spirituality, Travel, Travel writing, When things fall apart, writing

When things fall apart, is a book by Pema Chodron, Buddhist Nun and teacher of meditation. She has the best book titles, another is The wisdom of no escape. I read her in Varanasi, India when a sadhu told me to ‘Pick a guru’ *realising this could sound rather pretentious* anyway, back to the everyday present:

I had two weeks leave from work, unfortunately I had a bad cold which began in my last days at work and finished the weekend before I returned. It did make me slow down though, and that was a good thing. I binge watched Succession Seasons One and Two, and rested.

I went to Norfolk for health checks- blood tests and a consultation with the GP, having put this off for months, while worrying almost 24/7, and everything came back clear. I saw a couple of friends and did some Christmas shopping.

I returned to work to find three members of staff were leaving: my manager who interviewed and recruited me; one of my favourite people; and a new member of staff who had barely started.

And just like that, it seemed, work fell apart. Everyone got stressed, moany, demanding, and less likeable. (I include myself in this too, as despite my high ideals, I am not Buddha)

The foundation and the heart seemed to have vanished. An alternative job appeared in my inbox and I applied; chatting to the agency on the phone in the garden at work feeling like the beginning of an affair. (I didn’t get it)

I know, I know, I always know, that all I have to do is stay steady in the face of upheaval and things will settle. In fact I didn’t stay steady and things did settle.

A member of staff who had been off for weeks suddenly reappeared as good as new, like a good omen. Them, me and the favourite member of staff who is leaving shared some laughter and an emotional moment, eyes filing with tears. My manager’s replacement has been appointed.

I have at last started to become fully reacquainted with swimming, going regularly, building my strength and experiencing occasional moments of flow when the stroke really comes together. I’ve also been doing yoga at home.

After stagnating a bit (or as I call it, having  a fallow period) due to both having long lasting colds, we have set new goals to switch off Netflix and talk about a topic at least some evenings. Last night we spent a happy evening on travel plans, excited by India and then Cambodia lifting tourist restrictions.

At work we have begun saying goodbyes to the dear member of staff; she has requested we all write her letters! Maybe this is what this will be?!

Dear Flower

What I’ve really enjoyed about knowing you is our meaningful chats about spirituality. I’ve really benefitted from the company of someone who is religious. I have found it inspiring and enriching to hear your stories and to talk about your perspectives on mental health, which includes your own personal family experiences which you have been kind enough to share; about Islamic perspectives on mental health and the challenges faced by ethnic minorities in a predominantly white-European-centric system.

For example, I appreciated you telling me about the non-colour-blind mental health services assessment, which specifically asks questions about individual’s experiences of racism. I have found these conversations enriching and educational.

But I’ve also just really enjoyed being around someone who has such strong values, such a strong personal spirituality, and someone who continually reflects and tries to be a better person each day.

You have lit up the team. The staff love you, the patients love you. I always said when we did our groups we didn’t really even need to plan an activity (although you always did bring such lovely, beautifully presented and thoughtful activities for the patients), because they would have been happy just to see you.

I will miss you, it won’t be the same without you. If you want to meet for coffee on a Saturday sometime I would like that very much.

The Verse of Light (Arabic: آیة النور‎, romanized: āyat an-nūr) is the 35th verse of the 24th surah of the Quran (Q24:35).

Allah is the Light of the heavens and the earth.

The example of His light is like a niche within which is a lamp,

The lamp is within glass, the glass as if it were a pearly [white] star,

Lit from [the oil of] a blessed olive tree,

Neither of the east nor of the west,

Whose oil would almost glow even if untouched by fire.

Light upon light.

Allah guides to His light whom He wills.

And Allah presents examples for the people,

and Allah is Knowing of all things.

— Translation by Sahih International Wikipedia

Thank you very much for visiting

Since August I’ve been keeping a stream of consciousness document going, some of which gets loosely edited into blog posts. Along the way I make a note of spin off ideas to come back to in the editing. It’s part work memoir, part meditation on boat life, and life in general. Working title Triangles are the strongest shape

My memoir of a year of travel in India and Southeast Asia- I fell in love with you and I cried– is complete and will be published sometime next year

Follow me on Instagram: always_evolving_ever_real

On Awe Walks Part Two

Tags

awe, awe walks, beauty, nature, nature walk, spiritual awakening, spiritual enlightenment, Spiritual experience, spirituality

Rupert Graves- Letter to my younger self- The Big Issue Magazine

Just a couple of days after reading about Awe Walks for the first time (see previous post) I bought The Big Issue and in the Letter to my younger self whereby a famous person looks back (always good and often very moving, and which have now been collected into a book) were the words above from Rupert Graves. Definitely an Awe Walk. Here is another of my own Awe Walks, taken again from the little book documenting my ‘spiritual awakening,’ (available super cheap on amazon)

Let’s go for a walk, Part 2 (or, Heaven on Earth)

I had to go to Wales again for work. It was almost two years since my first trip, when I’d been so scared about driving there. This time, it didn’t even cross my mind to be nervous. I arrived in the sunshine and spent an easy afternoon at the hospital, being shown around and doing the work I needed to do. In the therapy office, waiting for my host, I glanced around the room: overflowing notice boards, information leaflets, resource folders, work boots and shelves of books. I scanned the book titles: two were about magic. Was that just the Universe reminding me, yet again, that magic is everywhere?

Because it certainly was. I finished my work and drove to my hotel. A budget chain hotel, it was situated in what at first glance did not look like a pretty area: close to a big roundabout in a concrete landscape of office premises. It was still light, sunny and relatively warm. I got some chocolate and a drink out of the vending machine and went outside to stretch my legs. I thought about asking the woman on the desk if there was anywhere nice to go for a walk but she was busy checking in another guest. I walked out the back of the car park to a scrubby grassy area, there was a path lightly littered with rubbish, a few trees shading the path. I found a more definite path and then all of a sudden there was a river, flowing over and between big, grey rocks with a waterfall. I went down to the water’s edge. It was so isolated, all of a sudden, even though it was just moments from the hotel.

I went back up to the path and now it was a real path, in a real wooded area, the litter had disappeared. All of a sudden, there was a canal, with lovely little boats moored up, paint peeling, covered in algae, hemmed in by what looked like years of waterweed. It reminded me of when I first met John, and he was living on a boat on a canal. Was it a metaphor or not even a metaphor, a real life tableau, an illustrated live experience of This is your life?

Here we have John, waiting, stuck, as I might have thought. A little way along, the boats disappear and here’s me or rather, a location for me: the water’s surface green with plants and sparkling golden in the light, like Ophelia’s grave. I was here. Despairing, suicidal and romantic.

I followed the towpath. Everything became lighter and prettier. The water was like glass, reflecting the huge green trees that lined the bank.
A group of dog walkers came past with not just one but four lovely, bouncy dogs, who all, dogs and people, stopped for a friendly hello.

Through the trees, I glimpsed a huge cemetery, which gave me a momentary pause: evoking a layer of gravitas to my skippy summer-autumn walk; increasing my gratitude and the urgency and importance of appreciation; reminding me that I was alive. Beyond the cemetery, a rolling vista of green, sloping down towards houses in the distance. It was as if every view imaginable had been laid on just for me.

There was a field with sheep in it, another with cows and then a friendly horse looking over the fence at me. Around each curve of the river, something new and more lovely than the last. I wondered when I should turn back or if I should just stop for a rest: a little bench appeared for me to sit down on.

Bridges, each one quainter than the last, made of roughly hewn pale stone, dinky, just big enough to walk under, it was like being a child. They were numbered 52; 53; 54; John’s age? The future? Tracking the course of our life?

You couldn’t make it up.

My senses tingled. My soul soared.

Silver- really silver- birch, almost gold in the late afternoon light as if it had been painted, washed with metallic paint. Who knew you could get silver trees? Real, silver trees? Not in a royal palace or a rock star’s deluxe OTT garden or on some fairytale film set but just out here, on a walk that anyone could go on.

Hobbit fantasy land like tree roots, travelling down over the whole surface of the steep bank so that I could see them all in all their twisted glory: as if the steep bank was there on purpose.

Like life… it just got more and more beautiful, it went on for how long, who knows, when to stop, when did it start?

I could have asked about somewhere to go for a walk. I could have turned left instead of right. I could have found out all about it, read about it in a guidebook, looked it up on the internet. Maybe I alighted on the only pretty stretch or maybe it was this pretty for twenty miles or more.

I hadn’t had a drink, I hadn’t been meditating and I wasn’t tired. I’d just been working and then driven to the hotel. So what tripped me over into this state of grace? Maybe the chocolate in the hotel vending machine was spiked. I’ll never know.

Thank you very much for reading

Please feel free to share your own awe walk experiences!

Self portrait, Pushkar, India 2020

About the author

In 2018 in our forties and fifties my husband and I sold up, gave away most of our possessions, and went travelling for a year, mainly in India, and also to Thailand, Tokyo, Nepal, Cambodia and Vietnam. My personal/spiritual/travel memoir of the year is completed and out with agents. I live on a narrowboat in rural Northamptonshire UK with my husband and two cats.

Follow me on Instagram thisisrachelhill

Further… A post about my husband’s ‘spiritual journey.’

Tags

books, Film, relationships, spiritual awakening, Spiritual books, spiritual enlightenment, Spiritual experience, Spiritual journey, spirituality, They live, waking up

My husband Anthony John Hill ‘became enlightened’* in 1985 in his mid twenties and the fact that he’s stuck around so long I sometimes take for granted.  Remembering explains why I cried so much when I watched the end of The Good Place on Netflix. (*my words not his)

They Live 1988 film

His words:

‘I became aware, or more aware, and began to question things, to question the world I lived in, and to see through the facade.  It was in 1985 that I realised I was here to ‘bear witness.”

How it started:

‘My girlfriend at the time,** her mother liked me a lot and lent me books; On the Road by Jack Kerouac and Memories, Dreams and Reflections by Jung.  Later I found The Electric Kool-Aid Acid test by Tom Wolfe, about Ken Kesey; Fear and loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S Thompson, The Naked Lunch by William Burroughs, and, most important of all, Journey to the East by Hermann Hesse’ (which we both regularly mention whenever we feel as if we’ve ‘fallen off the path.’) (**who he remains in contact with to this day)

‘Becoming vegetarian was the big thing.  You can read as much as you want but it’s the actual doing something that makes a difference.  That was the first thing I actually did in terms of self improvement.  From that moment I started questioning things more; I moved away, and started doing courses in personal growth.’

The Merry Pranksters were cohorts and followers of American author Ken Kesey in 1964.

‘Once you wake up the veil is lifted.  It’s like being on a hill looking down.  You have the opportunity to step out of it and look back and see it as it is.  Of course that could be all part of the illusion too, you can’t know.  All you can do is be as genuine as you can.  I still get angry, I still make mistakes.  I can still be unaware at times, a lot of the time, not be full of love to my fellow humans.’

Anthony John Hill at 25

My anchor and my guide

 

Throwback Thursday: Big Magic

Tags

Anything is possible, Big Magic, Change your life, creativity, Elizabeth Gilbert, Inspiration, Rufus Wainwright, Shame, Spiritual journey, spirituality, writing, Writing inspiration

First published in July 2017

I read Elizabeth’s Gilbert’s book Big Magic, about creativity.  In it she mentions ‘those dreams where you dream you suddenly find another room or rooms in your house that you didn’t know you had’, and I thought, really, that’s a thing?  I have those dreams regularly.  I usually dream about the same flat, not one I have ever had in real life, but in my dreams I return to the same one over and over.  It’s one of those old terraced houses divided into flats; messy, lots of other flats around.  Each time I dream it, I rediscover a whole other set of rooms that are a bit neglected and that I have simply forgotten about.  In the dream I wonder what to do with them, which room to sleep in, what to use the rooms for; I suddenly have all this extra space I don’t know what to do with.

I also have other dreams, where I open a bag of rubbish or I open a drawer and it’s filled with old cat food tins that haven’t been washed and have gone off and are filled with maggots.  I have to somehow make myself quickly pick them up and get rid of them without looking at them otherwise I would be unable to do it.  And I’ve let all the other rubbish pile up as well, I can’t understand it, the cat food tins or the rubbish, and I am appalled.

In real life I can let my car get very messy, tissues, wrappers, dust and stones.  I am somewhat ashamed even though I still do it.  So I thought the dream was about that, that I was ashamed of myself.

Worse still, I sometimes dream about caged animals that I have forgotten to look after, that I somehow inexplicably forgotten I had and that are mercifully still alive despite no food or water.  I thought all these dreams were about shame, or at the very least, clattiness.

So when I continued reading and Elizabeth Gilbert went on to say that those dreams are all about ‘expansiveness and your life having more possibilities than you previously realised’, that was very pleasing to me.  Especially as this was exactly what I had been feeling:  the evening before I had gone out for dinner with two people that used to work in my team, young women on their first jobs, with me the manager of the team and their supervisor.  I had the sweet and rare experience of hearing about what I was like (it had echoes of a child asking its mother what was I like tell me what I was like when I was little…) That was a few years ago so I have probably changed a lot but still, no one really tells you what you are like, you can only guess.

When  I said that I thought that senior management preferred a man in my team to me because he’s always the same, always unemotional, always smartly dressed, and his car is neat and clean and mine is always messy they looked horrified.  Your leadership, your direction, your care, you’re amazing how you get it all done, we were so lucky we had you for support, they both said.  They reminded me of all the different tasks I do and the skills I have, and said that if I ever wanted or needed another job I’d have no problem getting one with the agency they work for.  The agency pays more so I could work fewer hours.  Listening to them, I felt all the possibilities, being able to do healing as well, expansiveness…  When I used to just think about all the bad stuff- I am messy, senior management probably disapprove of me, without realising, I actually have skills!  One of the women invited me to visit her in Sweden, a genuine invite, and hearing about her life there, how she’d moved there from Suffolk, was so interesting and inspiring and made it sound so easy.

It made it sound so easy to change your life.

On a more down to earth level, it took away my fear of redundancy, knowing there are plenty of jobs and the world is more than just my current workplace.  It’s such an amazing gift, the gift of peace of mind, and a sign that I am in tune with the universe.

I realised I had it wrong:  those dreams weren’t about my clattiness or my buried shames, they were about the hithererto unknown expansiveness and potential of my own life.   I have nothing to be ashamed of.  At worst, the unfed animals were a gentle chide or reminder about my sometimes neglected creative work…

Because although I am where I want to be writing wise anyway really, in terms of where I was this time last year and where I am now, undoubtedly I am an inconsistent and unfaithful bride to creativity.  I certainly don’t have Liz Gilbert’s dedication and approach; I have other things, true, an absorbing career which is practically a vocation- can you have two vocations, can you have them at the same time?  I suppose so, look at Nick Hornby and countless others.

This time last year (Christmas), I did a little review of life and I had an idea for something to write this year.  Then I got waylaid in Buddhism and other seeking and beyond seeking, even considering that writing was behind me along with all the different religions I had burned through, because, I had decided:  I am to cease all seeking behaviour, and writing is a seeking behaviour.  And maybe it was, maybe it is, but isn’t talking, isn’t breathing, isn’t yoga, and who makes up the rules anyway?

***********

The thing that got me writing again after I had abandoned it, was writing a spoken word piece for a friend’s 50th Birthday party, (a night of anything goes performance.)  She said it could be about anything, so I wrote a‘my spiritual journey’ thing,the only thing I felt able to write about.  I wrote it while listening to Rufus Wainright’s song  Go or go ahead on repeat, which he wrote after a crystal meth binge.

Liz G says creative inspiration can either come in a skin tingling rush or it can be quiet and you just get there by following your curiosity and clues and it leads you there.  Or it can be like this…  I read a book, it mentioned a dream, I listen to a song at just the right moment, I recall a dream, I write it down.  And now I am in such a clear eyed clear minded place, isn’t this the perfect place from which to write a book?

Thank you very much for reading

Rachel Hill

About the author

I am forty nine years old, married to John Hill, we live on a narrowboat in rural Northamptonshire, UK.
In March 2018 after selling our house and giving away 95% of our possessions we embarked on a year of slow travel in India and South East Asia. I’m writing a personal/spiritual/travel memoir of that year.

Follow me on Instagram thisisrachelhill

Throwback Thursday: To the edge of the aeroplane’s wing

Tags

Against the cult of busy, Go inwards, Knowing oneself, Magic mushrooms, meditation, Self exploration, spiritual awakening, Spiritual journey, spirituality, The meaning of life, Trip

First published in July 2017.  It doesn’t matter that it’s not really Thursday does it?

Sitting meditating:

Feeling roots coming up from the earth and wrapping themselves around me.  At the same time the bones and muscles of my body turning themselves into vines.  My whole body feeling more plant-like than animal-like.

And in my mind, beyond thoughts, I see a bird’s wing, at its edges iridescent rainbow layered feathers.  And out beyond the edges of the bird’s wing, beyond everything, lies the sleek white edge of an aeroplane’s wing.  And beyond that:  nothing.  And then, the why, the what:  There is only the moment, you sitting there in the room- the wing enclosing all of it- and beyond it, nothing.

I had come up through the mind, through and beyond thoughts, not even interested in looking at the thoughts on the way;  the past just a collection of thoughts after all, like a tangled ball of wool.  If you are okay now what does it matter what happened in the past.  Memories just seemed like a clump of thoughts, irrelevant, as I went beyond all that to the clean white surface of the aeroplane’s wing…

We are more than thoughts, and I passed through the complex workings of the mind to:  Nothing.  A bird’s wing closed around the experience, around me, around John, underneath the rainbow feathers a network of bones, complex and strong.  Could fly but chooses not to, chooses to encircle, to be a protector instead.  Bird’s wing chooses not to fly.  Chooses to settle here. 

You are a facilitator.  Wanting to facilitate John for a change (he is usually the one who supports me as I work through stuff in my head).  In life:  you are a facilitator.  Make life easier, and more peaceful.  All I want is to be in touch with this:  my spiritual side.  I don’t need to be or to do anything.  We come here to remind our self who we really are, and then we go back to the day to day.  Neither place is better or worse; it’s cyclical, in and out, like social-alone-together-apart.

Since then my mind has been much quieter.  Cracks let the light in.  A certain amount of friction, strife, variety and challenge creates learning, and keeps me ‘spiritual’.  I am a safe harbour.

I have moved away from throwing myself too much into being something to make up for being me not being enough.  I don’t need to go around ‘being a healer’ although I do healing and I like doing it, but I have a tendency to over schedule.  And I feel there is something more than me just rushing around being me at work.  There’s Me.

Rather than being a collection of labels or skills, being very open and flexible is nice.  A facilitator.  A safe harbour.  Can do healing.  Enjoys exploring the mind and ‘spirituality’.  Tries to eat a mainly vegan diet.  Complex and strong.  Like nailing jelly to a wall, but describing self in an open way is nice…

About the author
I am forty nine years old, married to John Hill, we live on a narrowboat in rural Northamptonshire, UK.
In March 2018 after selling our house and giving away 95% of our possessions we embarked on a year of slow travel in South East Asia, mainly India.
I’m writing a personal/spiritual/travel memoir of that year. This is my personal blog.
Thank you for visiting
Follow me on Instagram thisisrachelhill

Throwback Thursday: The story so far

Tags

awareness, buddhism, Hare krishna, meditation, spiritual awakening, spiritual enlightenment, Spiritual experience, Spiritual journey, Spiritual practice, spirituality

A book should be an ice-axe to break the frozen sea within us

Franz Kafka   

For Book, you can substitute Love.  This is my story:

In 2009 I drove to work in the morning and watched the pink and gold sky split open.  Driving home in the evening I passed outrageously lit up lorries that looked like fun fair rides.  Somehow I managed to keep one foot in the visible and one foot in the invisible.  For the next six years, I followed the trail.  I always joke that it was like Eat Pray Love but without the travel.

I meditated and felt as if my skin was being bathed in soap and soft water.  I saw situations worked out from behind my closed eyelids.  I had the most amazing physical sensations.  I took up Yoga.  I had deep tissue massage and experienced profound physical and emotional release as she worked my knots out until her fingers got down to my bones.

I practiced Paganism and Wicca, I went for walks and stared at leaves, gathered foliage, wrote spells and held rituals every full moon for almost a year.  I was invited to a women and Islam open day.  I bought books and began praying five times a day.  For a few weeks my life was illuminated.

I chanted the Hare Krishna Mantra every morning for three months.  Things led on from each other.  I felt purified, and wanted to feel even better.  I had trouble with someone at work.  In meditation I said, I have no protection against this person.  The answer came: oh yes you do, you have this.

I did an evening class in Buddhism.  Stepping out onto the top floor of the car park after class, the sky filled with birds, the breeze cool and warm at the same time.  Listening to The Stone Roses on the way home:  This is the one, this is the one she’s waited for, yes, I thought, yes, this is it.  But no sooner had I filled the house with Buddhas than I woke up one day and realised I had burned through that as well.  Or it had burned through me, whatever.

I read The Secret and practiced The Law of Attraction.  Not to get cheques in the post or to get parking spaces, but just because it made life easy and more beautiful.  Simple things like walking up to a crossing and it turns green just as I get there.  To the sublime:  Arriving home one night I pulled into the car park, and in the second before I turned into the parking space the headlights lit up the hedge in front of me and I saw a mouse on a branch.   A mouse on a branch!  Almost immediately, the thought came into my head:  I hope you enjoyed that, because it won’t happen again.  I thought straight back, yeah, I did enjoy it, and no, I don’t expect it to happen again, who would.  And I don’t need it to happen again, because I saw it the first time.

As well as experiencing anything and everything I was also searching for a spiritual or scientific explanation that made sense to me.  A unifying theory, if you like.  After about six years of searching it arrived in my mind fully realised in a dream:  We’re all green mist, we created these bodies because without bodies we can’t pick up a pen and write poetry or kiss each other.  But the kissing and the poetry are so distracting that we forgot that we’re green mist come down for a human experience…  but maybe that’s the point.  You can’t enjoy a party if you stand at the door with your coat on and maybe spiritual beings can’t enjoy a human experience on earth unless they fall in feet first and forget their previous incarnation….

I woke up on the massage table as if I had just arrived there and looked at this new person in the mirror:  hair everywhere, skin glowing, mind wiped clean of all previous concerns.  But you wake up again every moment, and in this moment I can’t imagine anywhere else I’d rather be than right here.

Thank you very much for reading