A baby girl is born!

Just a quick update from an exhausted Granny. A beautiful baby girl was born this morning. She is well and healthy. Her mom Angie is still in ICU. it was a difficult birth and a second team of surgeons were called in. she is resting and still cannot see the baby, but hopefully tomorrow she will be on the mend. The exhausted grandparents are going to collapse and celebrate with a clink of bubbly.
What a day!  Thank you so much for the many responses to the post this morning.  It was amazing to receive these messages of love and prayer  all day as we sat and rocked the newborn.

Countdown to the birth

In a few hours, a baby will be born. I have spent the night in prayer and preparation to meet this new soul. There are prayers and candles flickering in different parts of the world this morning as we entrust this delicate process into the hands of God. Please join us if you feel moved to.
Angela will have a full anesthetic and will need a blood transfusion after the birth, which will take place sometime after 8am this morning, Thursday January 5th.

Granny-dilla’s Diary

It’s December 27th, 2011. The frenetic rush of Christmas is over, New year’s eve looms on the horizon. There are ships on the horizon at the edge of my balcony in Sea Point – oil rigs, container ships and even the famous “World ship” that carries rich people around their world at their leisure with their annual levy of a million Dollars per apartment. It has chosen Cape Town as it’s docking site. I see their lights reflected on the sea at nights, flickering at the stars above them. There’s a baby on the horizon as well. She will be born January 4, 5 or 6th. I will track my perception of this impending horizon under the title: Grannydilla’s Diary.
My grandson Kieron named me “Grannydilla” after his favorite fruit, the passion fruit, otherwise named granadilla. It’s sweety-sour with a healthy dose of tart. A very unaristocratic fruit, that creeps up walls and gives of itself freely when it has the right environment – sun, water and shelter from the wind. The passion part comes once you have tasted one on a hot summer’s day…mmm.

Cape Christmas, Hug of Channukah, Seaside of Solstice

There’s a festive air here in the mother city, as she is wont to be called. The Jo’burgers have driven down the tip of their country in droves – you can see them a mile away, driving slowly, watching the waves, choking up the windy roads of Cape Town. Empty parking spots have become hen’s teeth. Droopy, sweating Santas ring bells at the malls and beside the road sit a few dusty Pine treelets, begging to be bought. The venue for Christmas lunch must be beachside or if not, then definitely BarBQ. Channuka candles light up late, since sunset takes it’s time.

Spiritual teachers come in many forms

I have been thinking that it takes acute discernment to be alert to read the signs that life  gives  in obtuse clues and hints. Spiritual teachers come in many forms. I often think of Rumi and how his great teacher Shams arrived as a filthy beggar in the marketplace. He recognized his greatness instantly and left his privileged life, his position as a wealthy university professor, his marriage  and famiy, to follow his great teacher  and through that courageous event, we have the eternal poetry of Rumi.

In the past weeks I have had two interactions that have left me thinking about this: both came as a person asking me for help. Just in a moment when my thoughts and prayers were directed towards an invisible God, asking for help. I’ll begin with an event that happened last night as I was leaving the hospital.

Silent chants at a monastery in Italy

So many miles to traverse the earth, so many moments to discover the truth of who I am and what I bring to my life.

Recommended meditation

 

I have often written of Dr. Hew Len and the story of how he healed a ward of criminally psychotic patients by working on himself.  How he advocates cleaning out the old memories we carry around in our system, that hold a mortgage on our souls.  Last week Kristin Flood and I were redesigning (for the hundredth time), our upcoming week of silence in the Italian monastery (check out my website for details of these retreats if you are interested to know more: merlelevin.com)   We came upon a new meditation that has just been posted on U tube by Dr. Hew Len and I include it with my love and high recommendation.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vq2Gh0VG_Oo

 

 

The Yes! of new brain cells

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One of the sessions in our creative writing workshops is called: “create new habits”.  In essence, there is not much use in using precious life energy to undo the old bad habits we have accumulated. Rather use the energy to create new ones – but this time, ones that serve you, body mind and spirit.  To do this, we go for the things that give you a strong feeling of Yes!

OK I know the next question, I can feel it rumbling in. How do we know what serves us?  Chocolate gives a Yes! . Procrastinating gives a big fat Greek Yes!

OK so here’s the rub…the more honest you get with yourself, the more you feel the true Yes!and how it rings, how it strengthens and inspires.  Who cares if it’s chocolate or chips or an afternoon nap…there are at least a thousand other Yes!  moments in the day to work on.  And the research shows that every strong Yes! moment generates new brain cells.  How’s that for the new economy?  If you’re still reading, I’ll share a Yes! with you

I love to do the laundry.  This morning I got up at 6 and washed all my curtains.  I got a big fat Jewish Yes! out of it. Why? I ask myself, is this more exciting than exercising my hips to death?  I think it’s something about throwing in a load of soiled and getting back a load of clean.  It does my soul good.  It reinforces Dr. Hew Len’s theories about cleaning out the old memories. That load of old, soiled data that runs our lives; that puts a big fat American mortgage on our souls.  So the point of sharing this with you, on this beautiful full-moon, Cape Town morning, is that I am going to think “clean” today.  Every time an old tape starts tapping, I’m gonna throw it in the washer with a big fat South African Yes! Clean it out with a new idea, a new question, a new set of eyes.  Byron Katie gives freely and generously on her website of her wisdom.  I love this new economy that gives generously. My spiritual teacher Uranda said: Let love radiate without concern for results.  BK says, when you have a strong, recurring tape running –  ask yourself  “Is this true?  Is this really true?”  I would add: ask yourself, does this give me a Yes!  If not, do I need it in my life? Can I use this to create a new habit, a few new brain cells?  Am I adding to the woes of the world or am I part of a new economy that is not burdened by a big fat European debt.  Each time I hear the news, I’m gonna clean clean clean.  I don’t want that debt in my system.  I don’t want that message bogging me down.  I’m gonna throw it in the washer and turn myself to the multitude of Yes! to be focused on.  Not forever…just for today.  And maybe tomorrow…and well, for as long as I need new brain cells.

 

 

 

Moses gave us 10; Gurdieff gave us 79

Gurdjieff left these commandments to his daughter before he passed away.   George Ivanovich Gurdjieff was a 20th Century mystic who brought insight to psychology, philosophy, science and  ancient knowledge.  He also introduced the Enneagram to the West.  I scan these commandments to begin my day.  Gurdieff calls us to “self remembering”.  These commandments are a great beginning…and middle…and well, also the rest of it!

This stuff works!

I drove out early in the morning to my sister’s place – Caledon, 2 hours out of Cape Town, and stopped at the service centre on the highway near Somerset West. When I walked in, I was warmly, smilingly, laughingly greeted by the staff filling the petrol, and the waiters at the Wimpy where I decided to coffee. Everyone so warm and friendly. What a special day. “This stuff works!” I thought. Must be the meditation, the book by the Dalai Lama I am reading, my Kabbalah studies. Then the local police force arrived for their morning cuppa – about 12 hulking men with guns in their halters. They grinned at me, smiled a good morning as they passed me reading the Cape Times. “Gosh. This stuff really works! Everyone is so nice to me! Maybe I AM as special as I think I am!”

It wasn’t until I reached the bathroom sink to wash my hands that I realized the formula behind the friendliness pouring in my direction on this special day. It actually is able to be bottled! I had forgotten to take out the 4 rollers in my hair I had hurriedly stuck in before leaving my flat.