As I sat on my garden bench this morning I thought about an ex-lover of mine. I then thought of all my relationships that had ‘failed’ so to say,- going by the language we tend to use for relationships that don’t last forever. My heart shrunk and my body drooped and I asked the universe once again, “why did this happen to me”? “Why is life so mean”? “Why did he desert me”? “Why did they all desert me”? “Why were they not there for me when I needed them the most “? “Why is nobody ever there for me when I need them the most”?
I was on a rant – venting and complaining to the Universe, not really asking questions with an expectation of receiving an answer. Yet when I made a sweeping and overarching accusation with my last question, I perceived that the Universe was smiling back at me with a most amused look. I got a question back in reply, “Really”? “Has nobody ever been there for you when you needed them”?. That was when the floodgates opened for me and I burst out laughing!
Of course people have been there for me. Animals and birds have been there for me. Plants and trees have been there for me. Invisible angels have been there for me. The sunshine and breeze has been there for me. They have been there for me when I needed them and they have been there for me when I did not need them. I went back through memory lane and remembered so many times when Life has been there for me, whispering to me in the most unexpected of ways that I was supported and that I was not alone. I had never ever been truly deserted.
I had, at multiple points in my life, perceived myself to have been deserted, dumped and rejected, but in truth those were the very times in my life that other people in my life had stepped up to rock my cradle. Those were the very times, new friends and saviours had entered my life to gently hold my head and tilt it upwards to see the sunshine again. Those were the very times angels had whispered poems in my ears and strangers on the street had smiled a sacred smile of oneness.
So in truth, had I ever been deserted? Nooooooooo. I had only been handed over from one caretaker to another. The shifting of duties, the changing of guards, the changing of lovers, had freaked me out because I was looking at each nanny, at each guard, at each lover in isolation. I did not see that they were all part of the WHOLE and the WHOLE was the one who was looking after me. The one who never deserted me, and the one who always came to kiss me through different forms and beings.
Just by expanding the frame through which I am making sense of the events in my life I can see that it was always the whole that I have been dealing with anyway. The butterfly who delights me by flapping her wings is as representative of this whole as is the lover who holds me tenderly in his arms. The kind lady who comes to cook for me is as representative of this whole as my employer who signs my paycheque.
To say that the universe has always had my back is an understatement. The universe has always had my back, my front, my sides, my undersides, and my everything! She has rocked me to sleep every night tenderly in a hammock underneath starry skies with soothing lullabies. He has awoken me with tender butterfly kisses on my eyes and painted the sky with dazzling colours for me to gasp and delight in wonder! The times when I have felt pain or claimed injustice have actually been times when I have cut myself off from all that love and wonder and chosen instead to squint at what appeared to be a blemish on the underside of a leaf on a creeper in my magnificent garden. Had I not squinted so hard I might have noticed in time that even that blemish was actually a tiny caterpillar weaving a home for itself.
The universe has never been wrong or mean. It has never been against me. It has only been for me, of me and with me. It has been delighting me and surprising me in the most unexpected ways. It has been tickling me and teasing me in awesomely mischievous ways.
What would it take for me to always remember that even when I perceive that I am dancing with my partner, I am actually dancing with the whole. The whole, the universe, the everything, that has never ever let me down. The whole, the universe, the everything that created me and is always looking after me. The whole,the universe, the everything that always has my back. The whole, the universe, the everything, that I too am a part of.