Greetings
Beauty, loving, healing, suffering, colour, creating, moving, watching bees, plants and clouds - these are some things that touch me.
I found my way to these after a few instructive wrong turnings, such as studying Politics, Philosophy and Economics at Oxford University. I cared about the world, and wanted it to change, but found out that an academic approach did not suit me at all.
Gradually I found the teachings that entered and influenced me - and my work - deeply: the Alexander Technique, Cecil Collins' approach to creativity, Energy Healing, Psychosynthesis, Effective Intelligence, Nonviolent Communication (NVC) and Internal Family Systems (IFS).
Among and alongside these teachings I encountered and was enriched by several spiritual traditions, mostly the esoteric aspects of religions, and some 'New Age' thought. Meditation and prayer became central in my daily life.
In phases I paint and write, seeking to bring soul wisdom into communicable form. I am very thrilled that my novel “Zak” is enjoyed by both children and adults.
I live in Oxford, UK, with my dear husband. My dear son and his dear wife live in the Rocky Mountains in Colorado, US. This sounds simple and peaceful, but was not always so. Much of my learning has come through my life experience.
Photo | Yanina Isla
Travelling
I've always been a traveller. I was born in Baghdad in 1953, and as a child lived in Ottawa, New York and London, experiencing many long journeys over land and sea, and discovering that what is 'right' in one place is 'wrong' in another. I began wondering about life.
Aged 18 I fell in love with Iran while doing volunteer work in Isfahan - jewel of the world - and then hitchhiked around the Middle East. I tasted freedom, trusted my guardian angel, and realised that what I had been taught in school was a very narrow viewpoint on the world's culture and history. I came alive with the wonderful soul-to-soul connection of meeting people free of social identities and often with very little shared language. I experienced how people love to be generous to a passing stranger.
Ten years later, when based in London, I was invited as an Alexander Technique teacher to work in Italy, Switzerland, Germany, California, South Africa. For 15 years I listened to people's embodied physical, emotional and mental states with my hands, and felt how people melt into balance, healing and peace when given non-directive, non-judgmental space to do so.
Learning about life
My travelling stars returned when I became a trainer in Nonviolent Communication in 1996, taking me to India, Korea and Japan for the first time, as well as around the UK, Europe, US and Canada.
I loved being embedded in these places, hosted by people of those countries who shared so much with me, including insights into the impact of their culture - wonders and horrors. Often shocking insights.
On returning from NVC trips friends asked me, "Did you have a good time?" "Well," I'd reply, "I learned more about ways human beings suffer."
I also learned new ways to relax and have fun! There is nothing like a Japanese onsen (hot spring).
Finding kindred spirits everywhere, who longed for nonviolence in all aspects of life, gave me a deep trust in the possibility of humanity's evolution into a kinder and wiser species.
Creative process
Between times I return to creative process. Painting, writing, moving, whatever brings itself upon me from the mystery of the inner world.
I find these processes relieving, re-balancing, enlivening, intuition-stimulating, intriguing.
I hope some of what emerges has value for others.
One of my sweetest moments of fulfilment was when I heard of a boy, age 8, who kept my book 'Zak' on his bedside table for months, and read it several times - even though he usually never read at all.
Meditation and prayer
For me, meditation is many things - all of them nourishing: releasing myself temporarily from the denser realms of thought, emotion and physical sensation, to experience the joy of subtle realms of luminous presence, interconnection, being; being filled with a light that brings a lively stillness, and that places a kind of effortless order into my day ahead; receiving insights and intuitions; untangling tangles; emptying myself of my self to be filled with something mysterious and wise, experiencing deep stillness.
I often pray when uplifted by gazing upon beauty in nature or art, or when moved by connection with another person.
Or when very down and desperate I cry out the simplest of all prayers: 'Help!'.
Or when people close to me - or further away - are suffering. I trust this is a contribution.
But then, what is prayer, and what is meditation? Perhaps it is happening whenever I notice and love what is, or long for a better world.