I heard a talk on YouTube by a doctor recommending that we allow our tongue to relax, be free, if we want to stop the inner chattering mind in meditation.  I’ve tried this and it works very well, even though the inner chatter does sometimes come back it’s very much quieter and easy to dismiss.  So my morning meditations have been very much more ‘successful’, if such a word can be used.  And the ideas keep emerging, just as the Sun emerged into my consciousness. 

I have a calendar which shows which Gene Key is active at any time; as there are 64 of them, and only 52 weeks in a year, they don’t follow a weekly pattern. Each one lasts about six days.  A couple of weeks ago it was the 47th, which is in neither my own profile or that of the Sun and me.  But it can be viewed as a scary one, the shadow being Oppression, though the Gift, moving through Transmutation to Transfiguration is one of the most magical, alchemical. 

What is it that oppresses us?  Most of us can look at our lives and immediately any number of things will leap into the mind; not enough money, the political situation, global warming, a row with any family member, the illness of any family member or self, troubles with friends, children, parents  –  in other words catalyst.  The 47th is much concerned with the negative aspects of karma, how our past errors may return, and even our collective karma, what we all have done which needs addressing. 

I have my share of all these difficulties.  But the things that threads through my day, is ever present, that I spend so much time on, are my phone, my iPad, and the book I’m currently reading.  Between them, I can distract myself for something like 70% of my waking time.  I could be writing!  Talking to mum, gardening, wishing love to the world, tracking the sun wherever it is, being in the moment.  There are obvious reasons why I, and so many others, keep our phone on our person at all times; this is how we find out what is happening to us and our family and friends.  My particular issue at the moment is that I don’t yet know which publisher may take my book, and I live daily in the expectation that I might hear something.  Living in ‘not knowing’ is hard for me. 

It recalls being at school, giving in an essay and waiting to get it back.  How slowly time seemed to go then!  School was infinitely boring to me, and I suspect for most schoolchildren.  The days went by so slowly.  Waiting for exam results, or getting an essay back seemed to take forever.  But when eventually I did get the results or the mark, a pattern in adamantine was set.  It was that my self-esteem as a child depended on all those ‘A’s that I got in History and English, depended on coming top quite often.  My father began to notice me (and that was a very big deal indeed), my teachers began to talk of university, and it seemed that writing and getting my writing read, would open doors, open up the world for me.  And it did.  My life would have been so totally different if I had not got to university and met there my first husband, the father of my children. 

Writing is my essence.  It’s the key to every door I’ve ever known.  And yet I so rarely do it.  My self-discipline is almost non-existent.  It’s so easy to pick up my phone and quickly check if there’s anything from my agent, do today’s Sudoko, keep up with the French lessons I’ve been pursuing since the lockdown started,… and the Scrabble, the jigsaws, the colouring game, the gardening game, the word game (all of which I delete regularly, then re-install).  My addictive nature is my oppressor.  I can control my drinking now, to within medically advised limits.  Thank goodness I never smoked or tried drugs.  But I’m not good at controlling my food intake on the five days a week I don’t exist on 500 calories.  Intermittent fasting doesn’t work too well for me because I eat so much in between.  But I can’t easily control my use of my phone etc. 

The gift of the 47^th is Transmutation.  This is about changing, the difficulty in moving on, in altering the habits of a lifetime.  I approached that in my third blog, the one about losing Jemima, and here it is again.  Our distractions and our addictions exist because we needed them at various stages in our lives.  To divert us from grief, from inadequacy, from despair, from boredom.  I was frightened of boredom, frightened that the little suicidal voice within me might take over.  So before the advent of mobile phones and computers I stopped the inner voice by reading, and I can still do that.  I can stop the voice of the Sun or the helpers or my intuition by reading.  Once we can see what is happening, we may have a chance to overcome it. 

Wish me luck.  I’m going to allow myself to check my phone four times a day.  I’m not going to reinstall the games.   I’m going to leave my book up in the bedroom, for a quick read before bed. 

I shall live instead in this beautiful autumnal weather, the clear light on the colours of trees just before they change.   This is the season of change, of moving on as the charming warmth of summer fades into the strictures of winter.  The honesty of winter, who we really are, reflected in the bare branches of the trees.