Blog Post 89: In Search of Namaste Extract Four: Elephants on my bed and hornets on my path

I have left the city centre to spend my last two days in an oasis of peace called Kireethara Boutique Resort. It is by far the best of the five hotels I have stayed in on this journey and it’s a relief to have a little comfort as the trip winds down. Here there are elephants on my bed (fashioned from the towels, you understand), a bathroom with a walk in shower and a small patio, should I choose to use it. I prefer the air conditioning, the temperature being a mild ( for Thailand) thirty-two degrees.In reception is a sign offering Thai massage. I have seen many massage boutiques in the city but have not been drawn. Other Learning has taken precedence. Here it feels different. Over lunch I check the moral suitability of the offering with Rj who assures me that there will be no compromise. I book. The masseur, an attractive young Thai woman who speaks English, follows me to my room where I explain my hearing limitations once I remove my processor. She arranges me supine (and clothed!) to her professional satisfaction on the super king bed and gets to work on my left leg. I had heard the technique would be intense and I am not disappointed. By judicious use of angles and counterbalance, more pressure is applied to my tired limbs than seems possible for one small young woman to achieve. As she progresses round my legs and arms clockwise, the process is not without pain, but oh so enjoyable as muscle tension is released and the muscles themselves re-oxygenate. With the deep steady pressure I close my eyes and slip into trance. Images slide before me, coalesce, then fade. I think about the memories we store in the neurology of the body, the black bags of Ho’oponopono. I watch as the old slides away.Rj joins me for the most Thai of Thai dinners – hot soup (and there really needs to be a more extreme word for it than hot) and old eggs preserved I don’t know how (for my ignorance, if they used the term they would call me a Philistine). But it all tastes remarkable and the evening slips into the easy fellowship we have come to enjoy. We both recognise clearly the quality of connection we have established, and how our respective missions will help each other. We are full of wonderful anticipation for the future. But I remain troubled, for outside our oasis of calm the energetic balance of the world is changing more rapidly than most of us could ever have expected.I sleep a few hours and am woken by a consequential dream. These dreams have been few in number over my lifetime, less than ten in total, but always heralding significant change. And in this one Rj and I am ascending the gentle slopes of a mountain, accompanied by many other Light Workers in buoyant mood. Ahead I can hear the sound of someone keyboarding and I know he does not have long left before passing. I must reach him before he does. Rj and I leave the gaiety behind and proceed on. He takes a moving stairway up, I walk parallel over ground covered with white quilting. As I approach the summit I’m distracted by the appearance of a large black and yellow hornet. I’m disturbed by childhood fears and recollections of stinging insects. I see more hornets and though they are ignoring me they distract from the task in hand. I finally realise that the insects are emerging from the same place as the keyboarding is coming. If I want to reach the typist I’m going to have to ascend above my fear and pass through the hornets. In the dream I turn back and say to Rj, ‘There’s a bit of a problem.’ But now I am awake and pondering the meaning of the dream. I write up this travel log at 3.00 am and check the detail of Ho’oponopono on the Internet. If you are not familiar with this Hawaiian healing and balance restoration methodology, check it out. I am reminded of the four steps: repentance for causing whatever ails. A heartfelt request for forgiveness; the expression of gratitude; the expression of love. I run through the practice in connection with a personal presenting issue, knowing that this process will move to centre stage in my experience and practice now. For if I perceive ill in the world I am responsible and have the power to heal – we all do. I will channel the healing with words – words are my calling. In so doing I will heal and be healed simultaneously. The hornets of my own fears and limitations will not stop this now. I will ascend through them to the summit, to the typist whose keyboarding is summoning me. I will reach him before he passes over.

We are due today to visit the hot spa at San Kamphaeng where the water gushers from the earth at a little over boiling point. People boil eggs in it. Here, as everywhere, the mourning for the lately deceased King is in clear evidence. Rosettes at the entrance are black. People dress in somber clothing. Behaviour is less than exuberant.We each take a private hot bath in the mineral waters and later wander over to the spring. As Rj takes my photo others are doing the same. Quite suddenly a young woman takes my arm and motions her boyfriend to take her photo with me – a gesture that simply would not take place in the West. It has no sexual connotation. It is simply friendly. I return the compliment and take a picture for her and her boyfriend on their camera.

On the return journey I grow quiet, knowing these are my last few hours in Thailand. This journey, these Learnings are nearly at an end. Yet it troubles me that I have not yet discerned the meaning of the dream. Until in a moment all becomes clear. The hornets and the typing emanate from the same source. They are Yin and Yang, two aspects of the same reality. One is not to be feared and the other pursued, for both are my inheritance and one cannot be had without the other. It is fear that needs to be relinquished, childhood fear and perceptions learned from others.I can pass through the hornets now. I can reach the summit. I can meet the typist before he passes from this life. For I am he, and he is I.