Envision a New Home

The specifications I sent out to the Universe for a new home included:
• Enough space for myself and my son and daughters
• An income producing cottage
• Wooden floors and pressed ceilings
• Close to my son’s school and his dad’s house
• Mature trees, preferably at the top of a ridge for a view
• A safe space within a housing complex

Yet since I burnt my fingers by being specific, demanding even, that my efforts at self-growth save my marriage I have leant to end my prayers for the things I desire with: “I ask for this, Source of Being, only if and to the extent that it is for my highest good, the highest good of my family, our extended families, the collective and the universe.”
To help the Universe along I went looking at prospects until one day I thought I had found the right housing complex. The first simplex I liked I felt was overpriced. The second needed extensive renovations. This I was prepared to do and so put in an offer, but this was not accepted.

In sharing my disappointment with my Ayurvedic doctor, Dr. Ram Garg, I could see by his face that he didn’t think the complex was the right place for me. He then corrected my understanding of the law of attraction. Many people propagate the idea that if you envisage something strongly enough you will attain what it is you are looking for.

While I thought that there was a kernel of truth here for the mind is extremely powerful in focusing our attention and directing our energies on that which we desire there is a possible sting in the tail. It is that what we want is not necessarily what is best for us. It may in fact be the opposite of what we need in order to align ever more closely with Source and thus with the reason we are on the planet.

Dr. Ram then gave me his version of how to deal with desires in general. He said that you create a detailed picture of what it is you desire. You then release it into the Universe. And you leave it alone. Why? Because the message will go out and the right house will appear at the right time.

I laughed at the suggestion that a particular house would hear me and connect with my desire for stability and rootedness and that I would be drawn to it.

I laughed because in my retreats I tell participants, especially if it is a school forest retreat I am offering, that they are to walk around until a tree calls them by name, and that the tree will call each one of them alone and not their best friend as well!
I know that this is true of living beings such as people, animals and plants. I knew it too in relation to crystals and metals but in my mind a house is a man-made rather than a Source-made thing. I realise that although I knew that all things have specific energies that we can communicate with, I dismissed this knowledge when thinking about a new home.
Thus, re-informed I relaxed until a few weeks later I got into my car and allowed myself to be guided by the show-house signs I saw on my drive between my former home and my son’s school.

I found myself in a house in a suburb that I had always dismissed. And there she was, in impeccable order, pressed ceilings and wooden floors, halfway between school and my son’s primary residence. Large enough to create comfort for myself and my son and to accommodate my daughters when they are home with beautifully renovated outside rooms with spekboom growing in a vertical garden. I knew she was the one!

I saw her on a Sunday afternoon, took an architect to give her a professional inspection the following morning and put in an offer that afternoon. On Tuesday morning I received confirmation of acceptance. Besotted, I completely overlooked that there was not a tree in sight and little soil. And that it was one block away from Louis Botha Avenue, a street I was not fond of.

And I laughed for I took it as a sign that an adventure this is in which the universe is inviting me to be flexible and creative in a small space. And I laughed again when Dr. Ram confirmed that it is the right place for it is in a cul-de-sac.

And I laughed even more when on the first night I slept here the lights tripped and I thought the system had blown and still felt safe and perfectly at home. I went to bed and woke up with the thought that even though the lights may have gone out outside, at least I know that the light within is shining brightly. It is by this inner light that I ask for the grace to navigate my way through the rest of my life.