Each Day a New Dawning

 

I’ll be 78 in Feb 2023...unthinkable, truly! I look at others around my age, and I am concerned...how will this physical body last the TIME to fulfill every dream I have?

 

And yet I feel like my life is just beginning, each new day a dawning of a new experience, a new opportunity, new lessons, a new time. We think we are repeating the old, but when we find a situation that we don't know how to handle, are the lessons we have learned of yesterday able to help us today? We are the divine travelers, reaching for eternity!

 

I am reminded of a poem I wrote when I first came to live in Leichhardt, QLD in Jan 1994. I had already spent the previous 14 years with impaired energy and mobility issues, and gradually my health declined to such an extent where I was bedridden and needed the use of an electric wheelchair. The house I had been renting in Ipswich was not suitable anymore. I had been diagnosed with Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/ Fybromyalgia and severe osteo-arthritic back and knee problems. My world had closed in on me, unable to project into tomorrow what I might do, what I need to attend to, a short attention span, little memory, and yet....there was such hope lying at the end of the horizon!

 

My new house was especially designed for my disability, with wide open spaces around me, where for the first time in many years I could see nature around me from my living room, and the white gums of the Australian forest left such a vivid impression on me. 

 

It was also about this time that I had a chance to speak to my teacher Prem Rawat – then referred to as Maharaji. And through the simple words that he spoke, at an event at Amaroo (Ivory's Rock conference Centre) he stirred in me the belief that all things are possible if I can just learn how to stay in the moment, how to appreciate the little things, and savor each minute, hour, day - with the delight of a child. He spoke about the need for rest and taking care of myself, and how the physical body has the potential for healing. To fight for real health, with peace in our heart, and to trust life's journey. 

 In the midst of this trauma, there was laughter. In the midst of despair, people came to my house to celebrate this life. How was this possible?

 

And even though years later after many storms and challenges, I still feel that hope. I can see that I am aging, but that inspiration, that passion to listen to the stillness of the Divine Song within me, to follow the ever-resounding desire to celebrate this LIFE, to dance to the rhythm of that 'omnipotent' breath, is like a strong, virulent river that can drown any sorrows or misadventures.

 

Nearly 78, so what? I now call myself an ELDER. My grand-children call me OMA....(dutch for Grandma) ..,,,and my great-grand-children call me Oma (don’t like being called Grote Oma!) I still feel youthful and thirsty and filled with longing inside to feel quenched with that Fulfillment that all sages and Masters speak about throughout the ages!

In actuality, so simple. Yet it helps to have the constant reminder of my Master how that joy, clarity and hope resides within me, and by focusing within through the gift of Self-Knowledge, I can make it happen every glorious NEW day!