OK don’t distract me please, so that I can finally tell you about my encounter with the Gypseys.
When we met at the Aqua Eden municipal campsite in George, Patricia and her daughter Kala were on their way to Cape Town and were planning on doing a silent retreat at the Dhamma Pataka Meditation Centre near Worcester. Something I’d considered doing before setting off on my drift, but I’d decided against it because I’m still too emotionally fragile to endure that level of ascetism. Coincidentally though, my neighbours from the farm have moved next door to the centre and, when I went to visit them, I saw some people start to slow walk in the searing Winelands heat, when the gong sounded. It looked harsh. I often find that I’m introduced to an area before I’m asked to go there and share energy, so I’m wondering if slow and sad gong-induced walking is in my future. Someone insisted that it’s mindful walking, but I’ve lived in those mountains for years and with all my adventures and misadventures on the farm I’m pretty sure the walking for me would be sad. I’m going to be writing (retrospectively) BTW about that in the Drifting in Place category, quite soon.
I seemed to connect more with Kala for some reason. I got the feeling that that was where the energy work was going to happen and I felt Patricia was respectfully acknowledging the space. I can’t obviously share here the details of what was shared, out of respect for their privacy and their process, but it threw a lot of light onto areas of my life that needed clarity. Kala is only 23, but the soul contract she signed up for sounds richly brutal and she is not running away from it. She’s leaning in with absolute courage. She is wise, I want to say “beyond her years” but it’s definitely not Earth years. And here’s the thing. She’s the same age that Jenny, my late sister, was when she passed away. I’ve never stopped thinking of Jenny as my wise, older and protective sister, but lately I’ve been trying to convince myself that she was a relative baby when she died and so I need to let go of my ideal of her. But now, I won’t. I think I was reminded that wisdom is not about Earth age but about the energy that flows between two earthbound souls and how one interacts with that. Jenny endures in my heart as the beautiful soul that she is. Beyond the veil she can reach across and share and teach and protect. My ageing body may be stretching our gap in years but the connection is constant, and maybe, just maybe, there is a new contract being agreed to that transcends all of the past wounding. I’ve become attached to my wounding I think, but I’m getting the feeling that this drifting is by tiny increments starting to nudge me into allowing the healing to begin.
As well as Kala, there was another 23 year old energy at the campsite who I connected with. I saw a definite theme of new life and spirits choosing their path. One spirit still deciding to stay and one that had already chosen to leave. And both young mothers deeply engaged emotionally and both accepting the path and their role. One doesn’t always know in what way just being in proximity to another person can shift or help that person, but I believe it’s almost always a carefully orchestrated exchange of energies. When Kala offered me a Reiki session I immediately accepted, which was odd because I’m extremely particular about who I allow into my energy field. I wanted to give something in return but all I had was a Lindt chocolate, slowly melting in the heat. It didn’t seem like much. But then something quite magical happened.
That night the campsite was quiet with not a cop in sight. I was enjoying the peaceful energy of the night and feeling happy at last, until close to midnight when a crowd of municipal contract workers rolled in and proceeded to noisily setup camp till 2am. Once again, little to no sleep for the night. The next day these same campers woke up at 5am and started playing their not-soothing music. So I decided to try my plan of playing my music loud enough to drown out theirs. That’s when Kala came over and asked what song was playing, because it was the one month anniversary of a profound loss for her and the song’s lyrics were talking directly to her and helping her to process her pain in that moment. Interestingly, I don’t know where that playlist came from. It just appeared in my Spotify library one day and that’s the one I chose to play that morning. Sometimes the synchronicity and complexity of the design becomes clear and I realised that my reciprocation was just to be there and to act as a conduit for divine workings. A small contribution, but not nothing.
We spent a lot of time sharing the stories of our journeys, sitting in Patricia’s luxury van patio drinking delicious proper coffee. One story Kala shared was her transition away from her given name to her spirit name, something I’m trying (unsuccessfully so far) to do myself. I try to avoid the word transition BTW because people sometimes then think I’m trans and referring to transitioning my gender. That is a very confusing conversation when it happens, because facial expressions change to extreme understanding and full woke and deep compassion. All good things in the appropriate context, but way too much caring and understanding for a name change. It’s not just a name change though. It’s layered and complex. I won’t get into that now, but that conversation I shared with Kala has given me the energy to step again and deeper into that process of transitioning. My name. Transitioning my name, kind and caring people.
The Gypseys were travelling with a male companion who I think has a global contract to annoy everyone. His male energy may have been balancing their female energy, but it was really disrupting mine. He washed his clothes because he saw me washing mine, then he proceeded to move my washing on the line to make room for his, even though there was a whole other washing line to use. I wanted to stay friendly, I really did. But, I didn’t. I don’t understand the world of men at all, but I got a weird glimpse of it thanks to Gypseyguy. I was not happy about paying for camping when we’d had non-stop noise and been unable to sleep. So I told the camp manager that I’d pay a pro rata amount for the total number of hours sleep that I actually got, versus the 8 hours a night that was promised. Super childish I know, but remember I hadn’t slept much for 4 days. I then debated this with him for over half an hour and was making no progress, when Gypseyguy walked past and did a guy thing. He said a few nonsensical words, which was Brospeak I guess, I don’t speak Bro so I wouldn’t know. I recognised the words “not paying” and “noise”, and the camp manager said “no problem”. What! This is how being male just paves the way. It’s so easy for the Bros. For that I would consider transitioning. No, not just my name.
We all said goodbye and went our separate ways. Perhaps we’ll meet again. I have a denim jacket that I’m using as a canvas to reflect my trip, so the Gypseys have each written a blurb on it, which means it now travels in my “special clothes” bag.
** I’ve created a Spotify playlist with all the songs that are sneaking into my blogs. If you’re interested and subscribe to Spotify the playlist is here.
** The Jai-Jagdeesh playlist that found its way to me is here.