I have a confession to make. I'm not a New Age virgin. I have had shameless flirtations with many different paths. I have recklessly given myself wholeheartedly to a persuasive idea or a seductive theory and then cast them aside when the next one came along. I suppose I have been a bit of a spiritual floosy.
Although since childhood I have been fascinated by the unusual - I even got a book on hypnotism out of the library and hypnotised my friends in the woods at school when I was 12 - I can date my first real foray into the spiritual realm back to 1990 when I read a book called Living in the Light by Shakti Gawain. The title had been recommended by a book club that I was thinking of joining at the language school where I worked. I encouraged a male friend to join too while sharing a pizza with some fellow teachers and some of the book club members. 'Oh no,' said the feminist guru book club leader. 'It's women only.' I recoiled with whiplash speed like one of those people leaving hyperspace in sci-fi films. If there is one thing that turns me off it is 'exclusive' groups. 'I'm not joining then,' I said, meeting her hostile stare.
'Why not? What are you scared of?' she smirked. Er – that would be people like you, I thought. I made some excuse or other and didn't join but I bought the book anyway.
I began reading one rainy Saturday afternoon. I had never met concepts like this before. Shakti claimed that we actually created our own reality. I was gobsmacked by this. But I was even more gobsmacked by a couple of things that happened next. I was just reading the words The Lord of the Dance when that very tune came on the radio. I mean, what are the odds of that happening?
I am a great one for corroborating evidence as I have so many loopy ideas myself that I need outside evidence to prove that I am not a complete halfwit. I was reading Shakti's highly entertaining anecdote about a woman blowing all her money on a parrot which she felt she had to have, as you do. Once she had followed her intuition on this and bought her feathered new companion, she got a salary rise and her landlord said he didn't need the rent for two weeks. She had created a parrot in her reality.
Right. If she could find a parrot then I could find a – a – what? I wanted something symbolic. A key. That would do. Not wanting to hang about, I decided that I was, right now, going to take my two dogs to the local golf course and that if I found a key in the woods, then that was all the proof I needed that there was something in this.
I explained to my somewhat bemused husband what I was going to do and then dragged the dogs, who had already been walked that day, off on my mission.
I knew that with spiritual stuff there is a very fine line between being totally desperate and impatient (me) and open, relaxed and detached (spiritual guru people, those who meditate etc). So I just put it out there: 'I want to find a key on this walk.' I may have (embarrassingly) added the word 'universe' or something.
Kelly and Emma my two dogs, went tearing around the woods as if they had never seen them before even though we'd been there a few hours earlier, while I tried to casually walk along pretending I wasn't really looking for a key. From what I understood, these things just happened while you weren't thinking about them. I tried to feign nonchalance, examining some interesting tree roots, some pine cones and the like. And then, and I have goose pimples even now writing this over 20 years later, there it was. Right in front of me. A key. I could hardly believe my eyes, as you can imagine. I picked the key up and stuffed it in my pocket. It wasn't an ancient engraved treasure chest-type key with a cabochon emerald stuck in it, in case you were wondering. It was just a normal Yale house key, but a key is a key, isn't it?
I could hardly contain my excitement as I produced the 'evidence' for Alan to see. 'Look,' I said, holding the key out on my palm as if it was a piece of an alien spacecraft. 'A key.'
Alan agreed that it was indeed a key. 'What are you going to do with it?' he asked.
I propped it up in pride of place on the mantelpiece. 'Keep it of course. It's “a sign”.'
'So some poor bugger is locked out because you've got a sign?'
I had to confess that this had not occurred to me. 'They were probably meant to be locked out,' I said. Alan raised an eyebrow and went back to reading his motorbike magazine. But that was enough for me.
I was hooked.
