A Lesson from the Universe

So many lessons were learnt yesterday at Morfa Isaf Farm at my latest 'gather' event but here is one that has arisen since yesterday that I will need to think about for some time ...

At the start of gather yesterday, we all agreed we could take photographs and use them on line for blogs and facebook. Some people had very posh cameras, tablets, others, like me, used their phone.

This morning I realised that I had pictures of everyone throughout the day but that I didn't have any pictures of me sharing my practice of Mantra & Mudra. I was a bit disappointed because it is the first time I have shared my practice in this way and it is also the first time my old ovation guitar has been out her case since being re-fretted.

I contacted the other creatives, one of whom is doing a degree in photography, surely she would have pictures of me under that billowing fir tree singing with my old ovation & Tibetan singing bowls in the sunlight.

But no. She said she had been so in the moment that she had not taken any of me.

So I contacted my friend Sam to see if her partner had taken any photo's of me because I noticed she had quite a big posh camera but her memory card had run out during my sharing and kicked back in later during the day.

Isn't that interesting that the Universe did not want me to have photographs of myself sharing my practice? Instead she wanted me to hold onto the memory of how it felt.

I understand this lesson. When people take photographs of me they are usually terrible and I

get caught up in that squirm-ish feeling of inadequacy. 

Thus, the Universe through her gift of this lesson, has enabled me to live in the moment and remember the moment and not a flat 2 dimensional image of the moment.

Now then, straight after the sharing, a guest staying at Morfa Isaf Farm called me over and said 'I hope you didn't mind me filming you. It was so beautiful we wanted a record of it.' and I felt uncomfortable with this.

'I didn't know you filmed me.' I said. 

After all, I had my eyes shut for half the time!

Usually I would have said, 'Do you mind wiping it because you haven't asked my permission'.

It is important to be mindful about empowerment when using modern technology. 

But I did not listen to my initial internal feeling. I kept very calm and inner still. She had filmed it on her tablet and so instead, I asked her if she could download a copy of the film for me, onto Mandy's computer and I could put it on my memory stick but she didn't have her computer lead with her. I gave her my email address and maybe she will send me it ... or maybe she will not.

In many ways, both of these instances are great compliments. On the one hand, my fellow creatives were so with me in the moment that they did not feel compelled to photograph me. Perhaps it felt too intimate, a moment too sacred to be disrupted with the invasion of modern age digitalisation. 

Or maybe they were so involved in the mantra and mudra that it just did not enter their minds to take photographs ... which is brilliant! The mantra worked!

On the other hand, the woman who had not been in our gather group, who had watched from afar, wanted to keep a record of what she had witnessed. This is indeed a compliment even though she inadvertently dis-empowered me in so doing.

I could see in her eyes a longing to 'be' with us. 

'Are you an artist too?' I asked and she explained she was an author. I invited her to join us down by the yurt. She left her husband sat in the sun and came to gather with us instead. Later she shared her newly published story in the yurt with us.

I thank both those who respected the sacred space within my sharing and I thank those who recorded the sacred space from without.

It will be interesting to see if she sends me the film and if she does, whether I decide to watch it given my learnings from this lesson sent to me today.

Namaste