Hermit's Bazaar - A View from the Edge, Diary of a Psychic (July 08)

Some years ago, I was standing in the Cairo museum looking at a statue of myself that had been

unearthed near the step pyramid at Saqqara. This statue had brought me all the way to Egypt as Margot, my then mother-in-law, a very intuitive lady, had visited the museum on a previous occasion and had known at once that this effigy of an unknown scribe was a previous incarnation of me.

Knowing I was a penniless bankrupt, Margot had bought us all tickets on a fabulous Nile cruise so that we could go together and perhaps stir up a few more past-life connections as we cruised the sacred river and wandered around the temples. It was such a kind and generous gift but, as usual, it was met with my sturdy wall of apprehension. Back then, I just couldn’t even contemplate travel. I’d made my life so problematic that I could only function quietly at home. My world had become very small and it couldn’t tolerate any alteration to its monotonous, predictable regime. At that time, I would be sick with anxiety if I had to go anywhere and would often complain all the way there and back when forced out of my retreat.

Yet, all I can say is that the idea of travelling to Egypt was different. Yes, I was apprehensive, yes, I was anxious and, yes, there were a thousand small worries plaguing my thoughts. But, I so wanted to go. Something that really didn’t feel like a part of me, yet must have been my true self, really wanted to go. It would force me onto the plane.

So, there I was, some months later, standing in front of this statue in a glass case and staring into familiar eyes now represented in painted clay. I was transfixed. I gazed at this round, cherubic face with just a hint of a smile playing on its lips. There was animation to the form, as if he’d been captured in the space between moments as he sat cross-legged, much as I do, poised to record some formal proceedings and obviously enjoying the task. This statue was commissioned because someone cared enough about this man and I found that sentiment extremely reassuring and life-affirming. My own life was in turmoil and everything was changing so quickly around me and I was struggling and trying to row against the current of my life.

Back then, I had just taken a few tentative steps upon my path and, as is often the case at the beginning of the journey, the small door you believe you’re opening into a quiet and serene universe unleashes a raging torrent of transformational energies that you’d been trying to dam with all the power of your own self-delusions. I’d got drenched and my head was swimming with “life stuff” I was trying to assimilate. Life really hadn’t worked in my favour, up to that point, and I was now in a position where the old me was still shouting at God for all my perceived misfortunes, while, simultaneously, the flickering flame of the new me was trying to comprehend the shift taking place at my core. That shift was alluring, with all its tantalising glimpses of a different me: its sensations, questions, yearnings and desires.

Sting had just released “Desert Rose” and, as the song echoed from every radio I passed, my spirit soared and roared across desert panoramas and cried on the night winds that stirred the sand. Though my fears and insecurities still clung to me in the relentless Cairo heat, there was also an undeniable stirring and excitement. Something was being unearthed in me just as the statue had been unearthed from the sands of Saqqara.

There are times in each life when your inner, true self comes to the surface. It can happen in times of crisis and it can happen in times of intense emotion. We lose a loved one, or we fall in love, or we witness the birth of our children. Sometimes it can happen in the stillness of meditation or within the act of healing. These are times when we are overtaken by a feeling of complete higher truth and awareness from within. I call these occasions “soul moments” for I believe they reveal the beauty of the soul indwelling at the core of our being. Each pilgrim who walks a spiritual path values these occasions as special gifts when he or she can glimpse Oneness, and such gifts spur us on over the rocks and boulders that are strewn across our paths.

For me, I gazed upon the face of a cheeky but wise scribe and knew I had been in this world before. Within this “soul moment” I found a truth and design to my existence that stretched back across time to this small effigy before me. “I knew you’d find me, “ that hint of a smile seemed to say. “David, isn’t life a great adventure?

Egypt changed me. It broke open the fearful, fragile human casing and released a spiritual seeker and adventurer who roamed the temples of the Nile hungry for more truths to be revealed. And I brought that adventure home with me and have kept those cosmic floodgates open as I best I can over the years. There have been many dramatic changes to my life since Egypt and perhaps it’s just as well that we don’t always know what lies ahead for us, as we would never trust in our own courage and strength to rise to the challenges of our paths.

It had been a long time since I last thought about that little scribe. But, a few weeks ago, a lady in the audience at one of my talks commented that I must have had a string of famous incarnations and she pressed me to reveal a few past-life anecdotes. I told her she’d be thoroughly disappointed by my past-life pedigree and I was just about to resume my talk when the scribe came into my mind. While the audience waited in the small space between sentences, three people stood regarding each other under the great expanse of clear -blue Egyptian sky. There was David, the one back then, standing on the threshold of this path with all the pain and insecurity of the past still present on his face. Then, there was the other David, the present one, fulfilling all the hopes and ambitions I would have scarcely entertained all those years ago. And between us? The little scribe with the hint of a smile. That smile looked far more enigmatic now than I remember it. “Well, isn’t life a great adventure?” he seemed to say.

A Great Adventure