WARNING: Strong hippie themes ahead

It was a small fishing village in Sri Lanka called Passikuda that my small little miracle occurred. Can we call any miracle small?
I had been totally lost for a very long time. My life had ceased making sense and no matter how much I acquired or let go of, I found myself in a constant state of dissatisfaction and fear.
I had been wandering around Sri Lanka for two weeks and was frustrated that my state of mind had not changed at all. I was plagued by nightmares about people from my past. I was getting desperate.
And then I decided to just stop. I was tired and while a part of me screamed that I must be out there discovering this small village, a greater part of me didn’t care where I was. I was just tired and needed to stop. If that meant it was a wasted day, so be it.
I started reading Paulo Coelho’s By The River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept.
I had been carrying the book around with me but every time I started to read it, I found I could not concentrate.
I had had a particularly distressing nightmare the evening before and just wanted my mind to be quiet.
To my surprise, I was able to concentrate on the book. It was a pretty easy read.
I had just finished reading a section about the main character having to decide what kind of a woman she wanted to be – one held back by her past. Or one looking towards the future. These words resonated with me.
Only then did I notice the corner of a slip of paper curled within the pages of the book. I couldn’t tell you when I acquired the book or where, but this paper was a page out of a calendar from August 2000.
This was a particularly important year for me. I was raped in late July of 2000 and it messed me up pretty good. This slip of paper included a calendar of the month of July and the month of September. On the other side of it was a hand-written address for a place in North Sydney.
I had been raped in Sydney.
There was also a quote at the bottom: People’s minds are like parachutes. To function properly they must first be open.
What an epiphany!
I put down the book and decided I would wander to the Spiritual Art Gallery which was up the road and a place I had passed a few times in previous days but was only half-hearted lay drawn too.
I was given a tour by one of the caretakers who started talking to me about his belief that we are intellect, spirit and record.
I didn’t understand this last part so I pressed him. He explained that we have our mind and our spiritual connection but these operate through the record of our past – if we think things will turn out well because that’s what our record tells us, they will. If the record insists everything will be a disaster, then so it will be.
I was struck by this because the nightmares plaguing me had been of events from my past. The slip of paper in the book reminded me of a particularly painful incident in my life.
My life, while at times it had been magnificent, screamed fear and insecurity to me.
My trip to Sri Lanka had Been marked by a growing nervousness about money. I had quit my job in a poor job market only weeks after having taken out a mortgage. I knew it was the right thing to do because I was so terribly unhappy, but another part of me was saying simply “really”? It seemed ludicrous and I felt as if I was haemorrhaging money. My savings were dwindling faster than I had anticipated and I was ensconced in fear for my future. Would I get another job? Would I lose my house? Had I made a terrible, terrible mistake?
But I understand this afternoon in Passikuda, that I simply needed to have faith. It would work out. Or as the Sri Lankans kept saying to me “all is happens for good”.
Finally I understood that. I did not want to be a woman who kept playing a record of fear; I would be a woman who understood that everything indeed happens for good. And I feel set free by this.