Princess Sarah

I dont know how I've done it but I've done it again. Touched down in paradise yet again and this time even been told I am the princess. There really is a castle in the garden. And I am really here. Somehow I'm here in paradise. I think it is real, it seems too perfect to be real.

I arrived by bus, train and taxi. I was on the bus for a long a time, not because it is a long bus trip,  I caught the right bus but going in the wrong direction so I had to go all the way to the end of the route and then all the way back to the other end of the route. It was sort of like taking the hop-on-hop-off bus tour of Palermo except in an ordinary bus. I got to the train station with the train leaving in two minutes. But I caught it and it was running 5 minutes late anyway.

I got off the train in Cefalu - 'shefaloo' - and waited for a taxi. I grabbed a nice tomato and cheese bread roll for lunch while I waited. The taxi drove along a winding road along the the sea-side. Thats the Mediterranean sea, a more beautiful blue I have rarely seen, at least not that shade of green/blue. [unnesesary interjection - the blue of the whitsunday sea is yet to be surpassed in my eyes]. The taxi wound its way up a hill through an orchard and I was greeted by the cutest young Italian man you could ever be hoped to be greeted by.  He booked me in and invited me to a special luncheon they are having tomorrow - tomorrow is easter Sunday. I asked if I might be able to eat dinner there in the evening. He went and asked a lady - an elegant lady in the kitchen called Rosie who said that would be ok and her husband, Francesco said at 7:00. Then the young Italian man - Dominico, showed me to my room. He carried my 30kg bag for me (haha sucker) and then I went for a ramble over the grounds. I kept meeting the Dominico  as I wandered through the gardens of the villas. I said to him "we must be the only two people on earth; we keep meeting each other". He picked me fruit off the trees.

I can't do justice in words to describe this place and how I felt to be walking through it. It over looks the sea to the front and behind is a mountain side covered in grass, and citrus trees in flower and fruit and olive trees, and wild flowers, purple peas and yellow clover, an old cement pond with running water and a blue pool over looking the blue Mediterranean.

This morning I was wondering where to stay. There was an email offering accomodation.  This place said it had one single room left, I had been told to go to to Cefalu and the villa is in Cefalu so I booked it. Pretty cool to be able to book into paradise via email.

I did a little yoga, it is so quiet and self contained in this place, a private retreat. At 7pm I went down for dinner. They asked if I would like to sit outside in the garden for dinner  to watch the sea, the sunset, with my castle in the back ground because tonight I am the Princess. I had the lovely girl Cinzia serving me, with four other people working in the kitchen to make my extrordinary five course dinner - I am the only guest. A banquet for a Princess. Cinzia keeps running back to the kitchen to repeat to them what I tell her - I am a yoga teacher from Australia who decided on Friday to jump on a plane and fly over to Italy on Tuesday. They are so amazed. I am of course the beautiful Princess with the pure heart who's subjects love for her kindness.

Superb food, superb Sicilian wine, so superb to be waited on, they each come out in turn from the kitchen bringing me things. We talk about Australia and the Hunter Valley, I showed them some photos of Mirannie Mountain, my old home I had that was a farm. I told them how much I love Italy. After my first course of cheese and pesto watching the sunset, they transported me inside for the next two courses. They took a long time to eat as we had so much to say to each other. As I struggled to finish the third and fourth course they came from the kitchen and invited me to join them all together around a table for thier dinner.

What an amazing evening. We talked, and talked and talked about to love your family no matter what they do to you. We talked about zen and that if you let everything arise naturally everything is perfect and happy and not to worry, be happy. We talked about karate and Kill Bill. We talked about Italy and how I got here, that Italy whistled and I came and that everyone who I am supposed to meet is in the right place at the right time, and Sicily and where I should visit,  about Botticelli and Primavera, about all my David's - of course they saw the photos of my fish. And to finish off we clink glasses of desert wine all together over strawberries and cream.

I am so grateful to have been so blessed. It is humbling to have this.

I bought a beautiful scarf this morning from a hawker at Palermo. It is keeping my sore throat warm in bed.

Life doesn't come better than this. Not if you were an emperor or a  queen or a king. I don't know how to express it.

My Mother is Blessed

I am in Sicily.  I came here for: I didn't know why. I am in a town called Palermo in a hostel I chose simply for the reason it has a yoga room. I did my yoga, following the same sequence I follow for a class - I realize why we do class that way - because I like it, it is a nice way to do yoga. After savasana I began my meditation sitting on a cushion, as one does. Myself posed me a conundrum.

"I have my own wonderful yoga room on the other side of the world so why do I find myself all this way, as far away as I can possibly find, in a yoga room. I think to myself I must have a large problem that I need to see from a different perspective,  a problem I needed to remove myself from, to get as far away from as is possible to so as to be able to see it more clearly, from a distance. Some people on the way have given me a fresh view.

The problem is my mother and why she would wish to hurt me as deeply as possible and then not even be able to admit to herself that she did anything wrong. I knew that she would blame me for reacting to her betrayal by accusing me of being responsible for reacting. And I was right. She believes that her betrayal of me never happened, that she did nothing wrong in inviting my x husband to spend a lovely christmas day with my family and completely denying me.

Ok so I got over this and rang her to hear that I have something wrong with me by being offended.

Well.

So I decided I must try to understand this from her point of view. All I can see is that she she thinks all that matters is that she had a lovely day for Christmas. The consequence of loising me - her daughter, is of no consequence because she had a lovely day. I see that in her complete self-centerdness she is unable to perceive my feelings.

I found that by coming to the realization that my mother blames me for everything I freed myself from accepting her guilt.

There is a powerful buddhist saying to take the blame unto oneself and give the victory to others. I believe that deciding to take the blame is different to accepting the blame imposed on me by her and I refused to accept taking her blame anymore. Some insightful people in Italy have been able to point out to me what my mother blames me for, because I was unable to fathom it myself. She blames me because she lives in an unhappy marriage and chose to stay in that state. She sees my x husband as the perfect husband. I see that I chose my husband because he is just like my mother because control and blame were all that I was used to in my life and he kept me in my comfort zone.

Fast forward... discover myself, find happiness, divorce controlling husband and give up everything I loved to be true to myself.

My mother never did this, she chose to stay in her unhappiness, of couse pretending that by doing so, she is content. Whilst I shed my unhappy situation and chose true happiness.

So I followed the buddhist dharma. Identify the suffering - my suffering is that my mother wishes to cause me harm. It is difficult because we are also supposed to treat all beings as if they are your mother. So I found compassion for my mother and I accepted that she blames me. I will not accrpt that I am at fault - because I am not, I have done nothing wrong in finding my own true happiness in my true nature. I do however accept that she blames me for this.

Then I gave her the victory. And what a wonderful victory I gave her. I gave her the victory of giving birth to me. Because what a wonderful achievement that is, to be my mother. Because I am the most forgiving, happy, joyful person I can be. I am the one who never gives up, who is never beaten, who achieves the impossible because nothing is impossible.

One time ago I realized that I must love my mother because she is is my mother now I realize that I can love my mother because she gave birth to me. She should be so grateful that she achieved such a fine birth, she was truely blessed the day she gave birth to me. I have achieved the impossible once again by forgiving the unforgivable.

Now I have no problem.

A Moment

It is a sunny morning. I am in Monterosso in Cinque Terra on the Italian west coast. Italian people and birds are calling and singing  to their friends. I can hear the tinkle of cutlery and the sound of salt and pepper being set on tables. I went out to buy a coffee, a take-away cappuccino, in a styrofoam cup. I got two sugars and a little plastic stirring stick. I stirred in the sugar and started to lift the cup to my lips when I was suddenly struck motionless. I was standing by the sea, my eyes caught a glimpse of where I was and I was so struck by what my eyes saw, I was dumb founded - literally,  as I have lost my voice and cannot express through sound what I feel.

I looked and saw the sea sparkling with the rays of the morning sun as if it had been strewn with one thousand blue diamonds.

Over awed by the concept that somehow I have managed to bring my self to this amazing place and point in time, my eyes filled with tears of gratitude. I feel myself to be as in a dream, only in dreams can one feel moments where spirit, beauty, and worldly being are perfectly combined and here in my life I found myself standing in such a moment. Totally being as part of and the same as everything that existed at and in the same moments as me. I was the light, the sparkles were me, the water was the same as me, the air, the mountains, the sounds, the sand, we all were one in the same, possessed of and part of the one and the same energy. My mind, my body, my world, my time, my everthing existed combined into one.

I don't know why it is me who deserves to be in a moment of total bliss, but for that it is me I am eternally grateful. I am grateful to the traumas in my life for they trained me to find the way out. I can see perfection. I am living the dream.

This photo is not of this moment but I went back to take a photo from the same place. The blurriness somehow captures the dream-like quality of the moment though what I saw was as clear as crystal :)

what did I do today? Saturday 12th April

I have a cold. It is years since I had a cold. I had to stay in bed with my cold last night and couldn't go down to the party :(. I'm not feeling sorry for myself, I am sort of enjoying being sick, it's like visiting an old friend who I had forgotten about because I don't like them very much.

I couldn't sleep most of the night,  eventually it got near morning and I like soooo didn't want to get up. Bed was so nice and warm and cosy. But I have a special Florence card that gets me in to all the galleries and museums without waiting. I am so glad I bought it, I didn't have to book or pay anything more and the entry people like you, I guess it shows that I am seriously interested in their beautiful city and its art. It lasts 3 days, today was the last. Yesterday I went to the Accademia to see the statue of David the day before I went to the Uffizi, today I could climb all the way to top of the dome of the Domo 467 stairs, with a cold. I did well!

But that wasn't the first thing I did. I walked to the river, across the bridge and up the road to Orgnissanti basilica to find the tomb of Botticelli.  He asked in his will to buried at the feet of his muse, Simonetta Vespucci.  Amerigo Vespucci the explorer is buried there too. America is named after him. I also found Bernini. So, tick, one promise fulfilled.

Then I walked very slowly towards the Duomo, looking in all the beautiful shop windows. I am photo- shopping, taking a photo of what I would buy for my friends if I was to buy them something, it is very economical, and saves on space. I went into a chemist near the merry-go-round and bought some cold tablets.

I was so thirsty by the time I got to the Domo and I bought a bottle of sparkling water.  There was a really, really long line of people waiting to climb up the dome, they would be waiting for hours. And there is a really short line for special people. Of course I get to join the really short line. But I have to go and get a ticket and come back. The ticket man smiled at me, after my climb I popped back in to tell him how cool I thought it was from up there. There is no line at all and I started the climb all by myself, which is only a little freaky.  467 steps later I reached the top. I stopped a few times to catch my breath and write my name on the wall like everyone else. I took the sign that said "do not write on the walls" to mean "write your name on the wall".

It's a wonderful view of Florence from up there. All the terracotta roofs stretching out far below and I saw at the top of a hill a little castle tower. All day long that castle tower keeps popping into my view.

There is a party going on downstairs at the hostel. It is sure to be fabulous but I feel so sick and my stomach feels grose. I feel too shy to go down. But I will go. ...I went down and got a bottle of sparking water. My friend Rosa is there but I forgot to put my shoes on and the marble floors are cold. I'm back in bed again now.

I'm in a private room tonight and I can see the little castle at the top of the hill from my window. I tried to walk to find it this afternoon but I only got as close as a high wall on the other side of a valley. Rosa just told me that you have to get there from the other side.

After I stood on the top of my head on the top of the Duomo and climbed all the way back down the stairs I remembered that I wanted to go to the Pitty Palace.  It is a very pretty palace with lovely rooms. I was extremely daunted when I walked out the back to see the enormous extent of the gardens. My poor legs cried out in protest and my feet joined them, but I kept encouraging them, "just walk a little bit further, climb a few more stairs, see what is around the next corner, let's find out what is over the rise. Then there in front of me was a park of grass with little white and yellow wild flowers. It was just what I needed, somewhere to lie down and have a nap.

When I opened my eyes again I was looking at the little castle on the top of the hill. Inside the palace was an exhibition of costumes, so special. Also jewels and gold plates and all the stuff they keep in palaces.

Soon my friends will be waking up to see the photos of their gifts on facebook. I hope they like them :)

I Decided to go to Italy on Tuesday

Last Friday night I didn't have much to do, I was sitting at the computer and I typed in "cheap flights to Italy". At the same time my friend posted a post on Facebook with a picture of  Cinque Terra. "I might go there next week" I posted. I thought about it for ten minutes and then then hit the 'buy the cheap flight now button'.

As I was now leaving for Italy on Tuesday,  I had 3 days to get organized. For the rest of Friday night I imagined where I might like to go and sent a message to my best friend in the whole world.  Her name is Wiwa and she lives in Rome. She is like a shining light, lighting up the world around her, she is so funny and lovely. She sent me a message back: "Amazing! But I am in London". I wasn't worried about that. I could go on and do the rest of my tour and meet her in Rome at the end. "I shall go straight to Florence " I messaged her back.

On Saturday I went to the shops to buy a new suitcase, a new camera, a new comb & some toothpaste, travel insurance and got some brochures on Italy. I began to text my yoga students to let them know that I will be away for 4 weeks.  Everybody was very excited! I think most of them found it unbelievable.

On Sunday my son Wayland came over and supervised me packing, he was very helpful with advice on which outfits to take and shoes. I took my new black boots to get a stronger soul put on, unfortunately they weren't ready when I went back to get them on Monday and then I forgot. Never mind, I have my fabulous blue boots that people call out to me "I love your boots" as I stride by. And my blue shiny thongs to match my exquisite long french blue dress. And we chose the cutest little outfit to wear on the journey. Looking good at the airport you gets good service. I got out my passport and translator, my best guess handbag with the heavy chain that Wayland pointed out could be used as a weapon if the need ever arose. We also went up to my friend, Deb's house to say good bye.

On Monday I had 3 classes and the middle of the day to run around and do all the official things you need to do when going over to Italy the next day like getting Euros to spend from the bank. My friend, Nicola invited me to lunch so I could tell her all about it too, & I went around my other shop friends and bumped into anybody else who needed to know.  I had a big karate class because I had organized Friday's class to join in Monday's class for the end of term - which turned out to be a fantastic idea as it meant I was free to go to Italy for the school holidays. It was a full-on class of action, karate and games.

My friend Marsha came and got my fish, David & Warrior Moon as she is my nominated fish sitter. At 5:30pm I had my last yoga class.

After class my friend David came over to make sure I had packed everything I needed to take. I was all set. I told him this: "You know how at certain times in my life everything seems perfect but it still feels like something is missing?"
"Yes" he said (as I have told him this before.)
"Well on Thursday I felt like that again but it didn't feel like anything was missing.  And I went up a level in my life"
"Oh, is that how it works?" He said
"Yes", I said,"and this is my reward. Like when you are playing splashy fish and you go up a level you get a golden crown, not that I can get a crown in splasy fish, infact I usually score 1 or less, but now  I have scored a crown in life"
David doesn't know how to play splashy fish either but he got the general idea.